Hot New Trend: Solar Cinema Pop-up Tours!
By Nicole Wackerly
So you’ve created this incredible film, entered it in a bunch of film festivals, and that’s great…but what if the communities you filmed in or those you want to see the film can’t be reached by these means? How do you share the film in remote regions or with people with limited access?
For years, filmmakers have parachuted into communities around the world, made their film, then left without a trace. Today we are more cognizant of the negative impacts that can have and recognize the importance of not only working with local communities, but sharing the film in these regions once its complete. But what can you do if these areas are so remote, it seems impossible to hold a screening?
MOBILE CINEMA TOUR
An up-and-coming trend to make films more accessible is adding mobile cinema tours, also known as ‘sunshine buses,’ to your outreach and distribution plan. This innovative distribution technique brings the film to remote areas through solar power, enabling films to be seen by those who participate in them or by those who will benefit most from viewing. If the desired change is on the local level, yet your film is inaccessible to the changemakers, consider implementing a mobile cinema tour. It not only strengthens your impact campaign, but also enhances accessibility and equity in the filmmaking process.
SUNSHINE CINEMA
The Sunshine Cinema program focuses its efforts throughout Africa, bringing films to harder to reach, rural communities and empowering youth through media.¹,² Their Sunbox Ambassadors are local young people trained to facilitate conversation and inspire action within their communities. The Sunbox Ambassadors are equipped with easy-to-use mobile solar cinema kits consisting of solar panels, a screen, speakers, a camera, a training manual and a range of award winning African films.
Founded by Sydelle Willow Smith and Rowan Pybus, the org sees the power of authentic African stories to instigate positive social change and their events are curated to be a safe space to share and learn, and speak out and engage. In their recent tour of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019), with support of Participant Media, they brought the film to over 2000 direct audience members throughout South Africa, Zimbabwe and Malawi.
Check out more of their impactful work on their website or follow them on Twitter @SunshineCinema.
Other film campaigns are making use of this more inclusive technology to enrich their film’s distribution, outreach and overall impact.
THE ELEPHANT QUEEN
The Elephant Queen (2019) was genre-breaking as a blue-chip wildlife film with a character-driven narrative and took ten years to complete. This film follows Athena, the elephant matriarch, on an epic journey as she leads her herd during extreme drought across the savanna. The film’s directors Victoria Stone and Mark Deeble and their assistant director/wildlife educator Etienne Oliff were determined to have a positive impact on wild elephant conservation in Kenya.
Pulling off this impactful outreach campaign was no small feat. Stone began the fundraising process at the outset of the project and considered their reach in Kenya as important as reaching a global audience. To determine what tools would be most useful for local communities and children in areas of human-wildlife conflict, the team ran a 3-day workshop at the Kivukoni school in Kenya that brought together wildlife and conservation educators. The film’s Kenya-based website now houses extensive educational materials, such as short, educational videos, 28 learn-to-read books on animals, theatre toolboxes for all-aged children, information on how to get involved, podcasts, interviews with experts, as well as light-hearted infographics.
But it doesn’t stop there. With their partners at Bestseller Foundation, Save the Elephants, and Kivukoni International School, they launched The Elephant Queen Mobile Cinema in November 2021 to tour across Kenya with an emphasis on areas of high human-wildlife conflict.
An all-Kenyan outreach team of engagement and facilitation specialists was carefully selected and trained to use and disseminate the film’s outreach materials. The team now journeys across Kenya in a self-contained 4x4 Bedford Iorry named Athena, carrying enormous solar-powered Airscreen-cinema equipment.³ The tour has been a success thus far with several press write-ups and large audience turnout (e.g., over 1000 people attended their Lukore High School community screening!).⁴
They intend to hold hundreds of screenings following a strategic GIS-based route designed with Vulcan Earthranger and in collaboration with governmental, conservation and civic organizations across the country. The team plans to track their findings and make the information open-source, hoping to inspire future filmmakers to learn from and implement similar campaigns.
Be sure to follow along with the mobile cinema journey by following @theelephantqueenkenya on Instagram or visit their website (https://elephant.co.ke).
OUR GORONGOSA
Our Gorongosa (2019) brings forth one of Africa’s most celebrated wildlife restoration stories, Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique, showing the lives of the 200,000 people living near the park and how they coexist with the National Park’s wildlife. Their goal was to promote civic engagement both locally and on a continental scale, through policymaking, conservation funding and development. They wanted to reach local communities as well as any parties interested in conservation and human development projects in Africa.
To help ensure authentic representation of the issues, voices and perspectives, they gathered an editorial committee of Mozambicans, composed mainly of women. The local community were strong collaborators throughout the filmmaking process. Those on the frontline of the human-elephant conflict received GoPro cameras to film their stories through their own lens.
The film launched a mobile cinema tour in 2022 thanks to funding from HHMI Tangled Bank Studios. The tour includes educational and community dialogue toolkits. Their goal is to increase positive levels of awareness, interest, desire and action towards Gorongosa National Park among local people.⁵
Stay tuned for updates from the Our Gorongosa Mobile Cinema team as we report the status and impact of their ongoing tour!
Follow “Storytelling for Impact” and be among the first to read our latest impact content! And for more impact media information and case studies, go to our website: www.cefimpactmedia.org
- The Sunshine Cinema Spark Impact Program. Sunshine Cinema. Retrieved August 10, 2022, from https://sunshinecinema.org/the-spark-impact-program/
- Doc Society (2020). The Impact Field Guide & Tool Kit. https://www.impactguide.org
- Dallah, O. (2021, November 3). Internationally Acclaimed Kenyan Film, The Elephant Queen to be Screened in Mombasa. Ommy Dallah. https://ommydalla.co.ke/entertainment/item/2517-internationally-acclaimed-kenyan-film-the-elephant-queen-to-be-screened-in-mombasa
- Mobile Cinema. The Elephant Queen. Retrieved August 15, 2022, from https://elephant.co.ke/mobile-cinema
- Our Gorongosa. CEF Impact Media Research. Retrieved August 22, 2022, from https://www.cefimpactmedia.org/_files/ugd/3a434b_df84e4ed3e2a4615bcd4504eab062031.pdf
