Samar Minallah Khan was recently honored by Vital Voices, an organization that strives to honor extraordinary women, for her moving documentaries.

Khan’s makes documentaries that expose the gender-based violence that occurs in Pakistan. According to NPR, the majority of her films are about swara, the practice “where a daughter is given away as compensation for a crime. Swara happens mainly in poor, rural areas.”

The video below shows a bit of Khan’s moving work and how she’s documenting the way men are evolving and helping stop gender-based violence, too.

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When it comes to storytelling, film is a powerful medium. With visuals, we get pulled into the heart of a story; we take part at the same time that we learn. Skilled documentary filmmakers know the art of getting across a complex idea in a tangible way, one that’s not only informative but also touching. They can make us cry, they can make us laugh, most most importantly, hopefully they inspire us to take action.

If you care about women and women’s rights, there are some excellent documentaries out there, not only about women, but also directed and produced by women. That’s a good thing, because while the world of media is male dominated, with top grossing films often directed by and depicting men, the independent documentary world is more balanced, with women more likely to work on independent films and documentaries. In fact, 39 percent of directors working on independently produced documentaries in 2011-2012 were women.

Compare that with the dismal statistics of women and girls around the world: “Sixty-six million are currently out of school; 150 million are sexually assaulted each year; and in the past 30 seconds, about 13 were forced into arranged marriages,” as PureWow recently pointed out. We can’t have enough films about these topics. Films that addresses the state of women around the world are essentials to helping us pave the way forward.

The more films by and about women, the more we support women in general. Here are some excellent ones to start with.

1. Miss Representation

Why do we have certain images of women in the media? Miss Representation takes a look at that question, showing the link between gender inequality in power positions in media, and how that perpetuates stereotyped gender roles in our culture. Produced by Jennifer Siebel Newsom – who we interviewed around the time the film cam out – it is a compelling look at the under representation of women from media to politics, and a call to action for those of us who want to make change.

2. Girl Rising

The format of Girl Rising is unique: it’s a film about the stories of nine girls from nine countries written by nine writers and performed by nine actresses. The equivalent of a short story collection, each segment features the real girl acting out an episode of her own life, giving us an intimate view of what girls around the world are up against.

3. To Educate a Girl

In 2000, 110 million children in the world were not in school—two thirds of them were girls. Moved by this statistic, two filmmakers Frederick Rendina and Oren Rudavsky traveled to Nepal and Uganda to find out what it actually takes to educate a girl. To Educate a Girl is a look at the lives of young women who are working hard to achieve their dreams despite living in situations of conflict and poverty.

4. Invisible War

Soldiers in the military are up against a lot, their everyday jobs often being physically and emotionally taxing. But for some it’s even worse than that. In fact, a female U.S. soldier in a combat zone is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire. Invisible War is an investigative documentary about the epidemic of rape of soldiers within the U.S. military, a difficult topic, but one that’s necessary to talk about.

5. Half the Sky Movement

Not a traditional big screen film, Half the Sky Movement is a four-hour PBS series that was shot in ten different countries to show women and girls living under the most difficult circumstances imaginable, yet fighting to change them. Inspired by the powerful book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, the film isn’t just a film, it’s a call to arms to end the oppression of women and girls in the developing world.

Want more? The National Organization for Women has an excellent extensive roundup of films about global women’s rights that are all well worth a watch.

Image courtesy of Miss Representation

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If you thought “Titantic” was a compelling disaster film, try wrapping your brain around the submersion of an entire nation – one of the most breathtaking and remote places on earth. This is the story currently being shot by award-winning documentary filmmaker Jon Shenk. He is trailing President Mohamed Nasheed to deliver this essential an message about how climate change can literally engulf us.

“If we get inundated with water from the effects of too much carbon in the atmosphere, then this planet is going to be a very unpleasant place to be,” says Shenk, who adds that the Maldives struggle packs a human message. “Hundreds of millions of refugees, famine – the U.S. and Europe will not be immune from this. Much of Florida will be underwater. So, I hope this film ends up being a story about people who are doing what they can to help the world.”

Shenk’s company, ActualFilms, has spent the past year interviewing the president who has been shopping for a new country to house the current inhabitants of nearly 1,200 islands and atolls in the Indian Ocean. Global warming causes the polar ice caps to melt and sea levels to rise, and the Maldives is only eight feet above sea level at its highest point. Nasheed isn’t waiting around to sink or swim, and his plight promises to be a fascinating one to observe on the screen.

“I’m not interested in scaring people or overwhelming viewers with science and other information, but I hope people watch the film and see a group of people who are frightened about their future and who are using whatever tools they have at their disposal to prepare themselves,” says Shenk. “Nasheed and Maldivians are an example of people whose nation, way of life, and identity will very likely be erased by climate change.”

Slated for release in May 2010, Dirty Business uncovers the true social and environmental costs of coal power, following visionaries leading the path to an alternative energy future. The series of stories are shot in China, Saskatchewan, Kansas, West Virgina, Nevada and New York, with Rolling Stone reporter Jeff Goodell examining the pitfalls of a continued dependency on 19th century technology linked as the largest single source of greenhouse gases. Along with the families battling the devastation on the front lines, the documentary features industry reps, political leaders, civil servants and environmental experts – all trying to piece the conflict together.

Split Estate warns, “What you don’t know CAN hurt you” and maps a tragedy in the making as citizens in the path of a new drilling boom in the Rocky Mountain West, deal with their rural homes being threatened by polluted waters left unprotected by the oil and gas industry. The citizens frustrated by the erosion of their civil liberties, communities and health, share their struggle of clashing with interest of an industry that assures residents it is a “good neighbor.” In additional to meeting victims like Laura Amos (the proverbial canary in the coalmine) the documentary features civil servants, industry reps, political leaders and environmental activists, all trying to piece together the difficult conflict of energy versus humanity.

Garbage Dreams, which first aired the end of April, is a coming of age tale of three teenage boys in the world’s largest garbage village of Mokkatam on the outskirts of Cairo – home to 60,000 Zaballeen (Arabic for garbage people). They survive by recycling 80 percent of their trash, and when faced with the threat of the globalization of their trade by disposal companies, the villagers must make hard choices about how to sustain their community. The trailer shows the enormous burden the teenagers “endure” while combing for waste amid crowded rooftops where as geese, chickens and goats grazed on remnants of waste.

As Dreams director Mai Iskander so eloquently describes the children at work: “I filmed them day after day, scavenging for tiny bits of cardboard and plastic, the hard, dangerous and dreary work of carrying and sorting garbage with their bare hands, breathing in the dust of the plastic granulators and fabric grinders, making a tiny living from tiny bits of trash.” Iskander says he hopes the world will realize that it is these dreamers who will become world leaders as they save the Earth while lifting themselves out of poverty. The film has scored 21 awards including Al Gore Reel Current and Humanitas winner of the IDA (International Documentary Association).

“Why didn’t we save ourselves when we had the chance?” Is the haunting question aptly posed in the film, The Age of Stupid, which started out as a documentary but was morphed into a futuristic drama following seven characters and narrated by  Pete Postlethwaite. The award-winning actor plays a shell-shocked lone survivor in the devastated future world of 2055 – reflecting on footage from 2008 and questioning why we sat back instead of moving on climate change.

A co-production between Franny Armstrong, first-time producer Lizzie Gillett and John Battsek’s company, Passion Pictures, was first released in 2009 to rave reviews. The New York Times wrote: “The film is a scorching appeal for humans to avoid knowingly up-ending the earth’s climate, delivered form the vantage point of 2055, when the giant London Eye Ferris wheel looks more like a waterwheel,with its bottom immersed in the Thames, along with much of central London.”

Unlike other green docs in recent years, Stupid uses dramatization to heighten emotions in prompting us to take action while we can. Filmmakers like Shenk believe that going this extra mile works better in getting people – especially Americans consumed with jobs and kids and busy lives – to care about the cause.

“I think if people saw this has a human problem they would be more likely to prioritize the issue,” Shenk finds. “I think much of the written material and documentaries about climate have focused on the facts – and the message communicated is not quite working. Movies can be great for moving hearts. Once you have the heart, the mind follows.”

To learn more about where to view these films and how to host community screenings and events, visit Working Films.

Images: Chi King, Mnn, Age of Stupid, Dirty Business, Split Estate, Haumaldives

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