Nature Through her Eyes

Erica Rugabandana on location in the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania, 2023. © Nature Through Her Eyes

NATURE THROUGH HER EYES

Nature Through Her Eyes is a tuition-free education program focused on natural history filmmaking. It provides high-level training and continued mentorship to women filmmakers. The bi-annual festival promotes new narrative projects through collaborations with industry leaders, workshops, masterclasses, and seminars. The first edition was held in Perpignan, France, and the second in Cape Town, South Africa. In 2025 the festival will travel to Arusha, Tanzania.

We work with filmmaker Jacqueline Farmer to mentor female African 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.

structured training →

Australian wildlife cinematographer Shannon Benson on location in South Africa. © Russell MacLaughlin

continued mentorship →

Nature Through Her Eyes, Erica Rugabandana. © Nature Through Her Eyes

bi-annual festival →

Eden Robinson and Bénédicte Meillon laugh during the panel discussion "Writing Nature: From a Female POV — How it could save the world" on October 20, 2019, at the Nature: Through Her Eyes Festival. © Stephane Ferrer Yulianti

TRAILER

from our mentees

Film still from Erica Rugabanda's documentary "Kushi na Simba."

Global release

Erica Rugabandana's feature documentary "Kuishi na Simba" was globally released by Curiosity Stream in 2023 after winning the Best of Festival, Best African Film, and Best Storytelling awards at the Pridelands Film Festival in Nairobi. It became the most-viewed program during its premiere on the platform.

Erica Rugabanda screens the documentary "Kushi na Simba" as an educational tool and community event across Tanzania.

impact campaign

In May 2023, Erica Rugabandana began a six-month Impact Filmmaking course sponsored by NTHE and led by Dr. Liaani Maasdorp from Cape Town University. Erica's first documentary film, "Kuishi na Simba," is also an educational tool that has reached five communities and been presented to 1,500 schoolchildren and 2,400 adults across Tanzania.

The second edition of Nature Through Her Eyes in Cape Town, South Africa, 2022. © Reka Linnemann for Nature Through Her Eyes.

scholarship

Two Senegalese filmmakers from the Nature Through Her Eyes teaching group have won a scholarship to join a field training session in the Masai Mara with Dr Paula Kahumbu.

The second edition of Nature Through Her Eyes in Cape Town, South Africa, 2022. © Nature Through Her Eyes

documentary series

The two-part documentary series "The Big Little Things," written and directed by a collective of ten African women, won Best Wildlife and Conservation Pitch at the Sunny Side of the Doc in 2022. ARTE signed the series in development in 2023. The project has become a co-production with CBC in Canada.

Aishwarya Sridhar, filmmaker and the NTHE Mentee, shooting on location in Jhalana Reserve, Rajasthan, 2023. © Kenneth Lawrence.

film development

Nature Through Her Eyes works 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 2023.