Documentary Storytelling Archives - The Zain Jaffer Foundation

The Weight of Water

Mark Breneman — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 17:21:55 +0000

The Weight of Water weaves together three deeply moving stories set in Nepal, where communities are grappling with out-of-season flooding and severe droughts intensified by climate change. These natural disasters don’t just disrupt daily life; they hinder economic progress and erode hard-won gains, compounding existing injustices and creating nearly insurmountable obstacles for the region’s people.

This feature-length documentary offers intimate, firsthand perspectives from Nepali communities and climate experts, allowing viewers to experience the impact of these crises through the voices of those directly affected. It’s a story of resilience and urgency—a call to action to bring global attention to the human cost of environmental neglect.

Co-created by Deej Phillips and Neelima Vallangi, the film has received much recognition, including the award for Best documentary in the 2022 Aravali Film Festival. The film’s trailer, which can be viewed below, was also screened at a virtual United National Development Programme (UNDP) event.

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Picturing My Climate Future

Mark Breneman — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 21:03:42 +0000

Picturing My Climate Future is a documentary initiative by Seeing for Ourselves (SFO), a nonprofit organization that empowers marginalized communities to share their narratives through photography. Piloted in March 2023 in partnership with Cape Elizabeth High School in Maine, the project invites students to capture images reflecting their perspectives on climate change, using their smartphones to document their local environments. The initiatives seeks foremost to raise awareness about the urgent issues young people face regarding climate change.

After a successful proof-of-concept, SFO plans to expand the initiative into a full-scale program in the spring of 2025. The project aims to engage more students at a national level. Support from The Zain Jaffer Foundation has also been instrumental in developing the below work-in-progress preview version of the documentary, which will serve as a foundation for the final film.

Through Picturing My Climate Future, SFO and The Zain Jaffer Foundation hope to amplify youth voices and promote intergenerational dialogue about climate action.

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