THEVIIFOUNDATION.ORG/VII-ACADEMY @viifoundation | @theviiacademy
Nature Through Her Eyes
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NATURE THROUGH HER EYES THE VII FOUNDATION
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“Storytelling is a way of reclaiming the narrative. Through storytelling, we are challenging the seats of power and retelling stories about relationships with the land. The goal is to reframe our stories to include the perspectives of women, black and indigenous communities, and other historically marginalized communities.” Faith Briggs, filmmaker and keynote speaker at Nature Through Her Eyes Festival 2019
NATURE THROUGH HER EYES THE VII FOUNDATION
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NATURE THROUGH HER EYES: IN PARTNERSHIP WITH VII ACADEMY
The VII Foundation and its academy seek support to advance the representation of women’s perspectives in natural history filmmaking and conservation. Through a partnership with Jacqueline Farmer, an accomplished natural history filmmaker, The VII Foundation has established an educational program called Nature Through Her Eyes (NTHE). VII Academy works with Jacqueline Farmer to mentor filmmakers so they can document their vision of natural history. This partnership began because we jointly identified a problem, proposed a training solution, and set up a mentoring system. As a result, we have developed new capacity that produces new perspectives. NTHE will offer high-level training to women across natural history filmmaking and photography with some of the genre’s leading practitioners. To date, NTHE has trained the first African women underwater cinematographers and many of its trainees are being commissioned for documentary projects in Asia and Africa. Among them is Erica Rugabandana from Tanzania, the first long-lens wildlife camera operator and director whose feature documentary is a multiple-award winner and is a resource for lion conservation education in communities across the region.
| Australian wildlife cinematographer Shannon Benson on location in South Africa. ©Russell MacLaughlin
The VII Foundation’s mission is to ensure that decision-makers and citizens are equipped with the truth — that is, the facts — required to make thoughtful decisions that advance humanity in a positively sustainable manner. This mission couldn’t be more urgent at a time when beliefs and actions are increasingly out-of-sync with facts and realities.
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Women are significantly underrepresented in narratives about nature and wildlife. Films, essays, and photographs exploring the natural world have often prioritized male contributions. As we enter the sixth mass species extinction and a global climate crisis, the human connection with the natural world has become one of the greatest challenges of our century, emphasizing the importance of amplifying women’s points of view. Nature Through Her Eyes is dedicated to advancing women’s impactful contributions to filming the natural world. Our tuitionfree NTHE educational programs provide high-level training and mentorship to women filmmakers worldwide, providing them with the tools to define their contribution and craft stories that resonate with a global audience. NTHE have trained more than 350 women worldwide across filmmaking and photography in countries as diverse as South Africa, Gabon, India, Kenya, Senegal, and Tanzania, among others. We have shown student films to over 5,000 spectators globally. We support filmmakers with continuing education as they develop their careers and facilitate mentee projects to international decisionmakers, ensuring global audiences see their work. Additionally, we host a bi-annual festival that promotes women’s contributions in our industry, featuring seminars that foster critical discussions with leading educators and collaborate with conservation organizations to host in-the-field workshops. To deliver the NTHE mission, we have three principal tasks:
| A free diving workshop with Sea The Bigger Picture during the Nature Through Her Eyes Festival. Cape Town, South Africa, 2022. ©Melanie Judd
1. Structured Education to provide women with the industryspecific skills they need and ensure their film projects make it to our screens. 2. Continued Mentorship from NTHE to support students’ film projects from inception to signature. 3. Nature Through Her Eyes Festival held every two years to promote and celebrate the work of our students and showcase it to industry leaders.
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STRUCTURED EDUCATION Working within the nature and environment space, Nature Through Her Eyes offers structured education to women in filmmaking in the natural world. Our NTHE tuition-free programs equip storytellers with the tools to define their contribution and create stories that resonate. We provide technical guidance, equipment, in-the-field training and opportunities for professional collaboration. Nature Through Her Eyes training programs are held in-person and online, and are based on a 3-level structure: Level 1 is a 12-week program held online for 10-12 women filmmakers. We hold two Level 1 courses annually on documentary filmmaking and production, including classes on structure, writing, research, budgeting, and production. Level 2 is a 12-week online program that takes the 10 best students from Level 1 and equips them with additional skills, extending the concepts from Level 1 and adding business skills, copywriting techniques, and networking advice. We hold two Level 2 courses annually. Level 3 is an all-inclusive 10-12 week in-person program comprising the most accomplished students from Level 2. We also run an online legal course in partnership with the Jackson Wild Film Festival, specifically tailored for women.
| Aishwarya Sridhar, filmmaker, and NTHE Mentee shooting on location in Jhalana Reserve, Rajasthan, 2023. ©Kenneth Lawrence
NATURE THROUGH HER EYES THE VII FOUNDATION
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CONTINUED MENTORSHIP A vital part of NTHE’s work is the continued mentorship of filmmakers, accompanying their projects to international distributors to secure financing and facilitate the delivery of films for global public audiences. Nature Through Her Eyes mentorships enable mentees to foster robust connections with decision-makers and organizations. Under Jacqueline Farmer’s guidance, filmmakers receive support from project inception to funding and production. To date, several of our mentees have secured National Geographic Storytelling Grants and endorsements from streaming platforms and international co-productions. In 2021, an NTHE team traveled to South Africa to train a group of ten African women storytellers and scientists in underwater cinematography and narrative storytelling as part of a divemaster program financed by NEWF. Before this, there were no African women underwater cinematographers. The project has since become a 2-part international co-production. Looking forward, NTHE will continue to support several individual and collaborative projects. NTHE continues to mentor and train Erica Rugabandana. Erica is Tanzania’s first woman long-lens wildlife camera operator and director, following prolonged training on camera and documentary writing and production with the NTHE team. In June 2023, she finished her feature documentary Kuishi na Simba (Living with Lions), which tells the story of the human-wildlife conflict between lions and Ikoma villagers living on the boundaries of the Serengeti National Park. It has since received multiple awards and has been showcased at national and international events, educating local communities and fostering meaningful dialogue among stakeholder groups. | Erica Rugabandana on location in the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania 2023. @Cyril Barbançon
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NTHE BI-ANNUAL FESTIVAL In presenting an opportunity for practitioners in the natural world to convene and share their knowledge, the Nature Through Her Eyes Festival supports women filmmakers and photographers across education, access, and advocacy. The festival accelerates the NTHE mission and promotes new narrative projects through collaboration with industry leaders, workshops, masterclasses, and seminars. The inaugural edition of the Nature Through Her Eyes Festival was held in Perpignan, France, in 2019 and explored women’s perspectives in portraying the natural world and why it is essential for society as a whole. Subsequently, in November 2022, the second NTHE Festival took place in Cape Town. It was supported by French and South African government organizations and focused on bioacoustics and sound in natural history filmmaking. It included an ocean trip with hydrophones, a series of impactful talks led by African women, and sold-out screenings of films by female directors at the Labia Theatre. A photography exhibition was inaugurated at the French Institute and ran for over four weeks. Online versions of the festival, with recordings from the in-person events, are run yearly on Women’s Day, March 8th. These virtual events enable NTHE to deliver content and training to women worldwide. The 2024 edition is set to take place in Arusha, Tanzania, and the 2026 festival in Bosnia Herzegovina. The NTHE Festival is a public event and is free to attend.
| Filmmaker Faith Briggs delivers the keynote speech at the inaugural Nature Through Her Eyes Festival. Perpignan, France, 2019. ©Stephane Ferrer Yulianti
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NTHE HIGHLIGHTS SO FAR Erica Rugabandana’s feature documentary Kushi na Simba or Living with Lions achieved global release this year after winning Best of Festival, Best African Film, and Best Storytelling at the Pridelands Film Festival in Nairobi. Kuishi na Simba was released globally by Curiosity Stream in October 2023 and emerged as the most-viewed program during its premiere on the platform. In May 2023, sponsored by NTHE, Erica Rugabandana began a sixmonth Impact Filmmaking course led by Dr. Liaani Maasdorp from Cape Town University. The film serves as a powerful educational tool and community event, reaching five communities so far and being presented to 1,500 school children and 2,400 adults across Tanzania. In 2024, the impact campaign will continue to travel across Tanzania and Kenya in collaboration with the WWF and the FZS. The film will be broadcast free-to-air on Tanzanian national television, and most recently, it has received financing from the Australian High Commission for distribution across East Africa. Two Senegalese filmmakers from the NTHE teaching group have won a scholarship to join a field training session in the Masai Mara with Dr Paula Kahumbu. The 2-part documentary series, The Big Little Things, written and directed by a collective of ten African women that won Best Wildlife and Conservation Pitch at the Sunny Side of the Doc in 2022 was signed in development by ARTE in February 2023. The project has become a co-production with CBC in Canada.
| Erica Rugabandana awarded Best of Festival at the Pridelands Film Festival. Kenya, 2023. ©Fiona Tande
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NTHE is working with Indian filmmaker Aishwarya Sridhar on developing her film in the Jhalana region of Rajasthan. Aishwarya’s written, directed, and lensed project began shooting in May 2023. NTHE is also working with Gabonese filmmaker Kristina Obame on her project covering the disappearance of the Batéké lion. She will begin shooting in June 2024.
HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT US All our training is tuition-free and will always be. We want our training to be free of charge for its deserving recipients because building capacity for women and their perspectives in the genre of natural history filmmaking is crucial. Our mentees’ perspectives are vital to all of us. As a new generation of visual storytellers, conservationists, and scientists emerge, we want to expand our work to change the discourse and create an extensive body of pioneering work as we have described above. Please contact Jacqueline Farmer, Director of Nature Through Her Eyes, if you would like to discuss our NTHE programs and know more about how you can support us to empower new voices in natural history filmmaking. For administrative or financial inquiries, please contact Marianne Tollié.
| Kimerudi Motswai preparing dive tanks. Sodwana Bay, South Africa, 2022. ©Jacqueline Farmer
NATURE THROUGH HER EYES THE VII FOUNDATION
Education: Level 1 online
One Level 1 seminar (12 weeks) costs $6,000 to run. Two Level 1 seminars yield enough students to continue to Level 2. We plan to run two Level 1 seminars annually.
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Year 2024
Year 2025
Year 2026
Year 2027
Year 2028
Total
$ 12.000
$ 12.000
$12.000
$12.000
$12.000
$60.000
$8.000
$8.000
$8.000
$8.000
$32.000
Education: Level 2 online
One Level 2 seminar (online) costs $8,000 to run. Two Level 2 seminars yield enough students to continue to Level 3. We plan to run two Level 2 seminars annually.
Education: Level 3 in-person
One Level 3 (in-person) seminar costs $30,000, all-inclusive. In 2024, the Level 3 seminar will teach a group of Senegalese students who have completed Level 1 and Level 2 between 2019 and 2023.
$30.000
$30.000
$30.000
$90.000
$40.000
$45.000
$50.000
$135.000
Festival
2024 festival held in Tanzania. 2026 festival held in Bosnia-Herzegovina. 2028 festival is tbc. We expect the festival to grow in content and capacity over the next five years and have budgeted accordingly.
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Year 2024
Year 2025
Year 2026
Year 2027
Year 2028
Total
$1.000
$1.000
$1.000
$1.000
$1.000
$5.000
$10.000
$5.000
$10.000
$5.000
$10.000
$40.000
$20.000
$20.000
$20.000
$20.000
$20.000
$100.000
Strategy, Networking, Finances, Legalities & Reporting
$15.000
$15.000
$15.000
$15.000
$15.000
$75.000
TOTAL
Year 2024 $128.000
Year 2025 $61.000
Year 2026 $141.000
Year 2027 $61.000
Year 2028 $146.000
Total $537.000
Event
Annual Women’s Day online event (March 8) in partnership with Jackson Wild via Remo Platform.
Communication
Social impact campaigns, including social media. Costs are higher during festival years.
Project Management & Operations
Jacqueline Farmer, Founder. www.theviifoundation.org/profile/jacqueline-farmer
The VII Foundation, Nature Through Her Eyes partner. www.theviifoundation.org
| NATURE THROUGH HER EYES. ‘Sound in the Field’ A masterclass on sound & bioacoustics with Dr. Tess Gridley, Rachel Probert & Catherine Nadin. Held during Nature Through Her Eyes Festival, Cape Town, 2022.
@viifoundation | @theviiacademy
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