An artist, an activist, and a tireless force, N'Djamena-born filmmaker Aché Ahmat Moustapha has devoted her life to chronicling and sharing impactful stories from across the communities of Chad. She was a leading contributor to Portraits of Chadian Women, a book documenting the lives of 100 disparate subjects, and founded the FETCOUM film festival to spark creativity and collaboration among up-and-coming storytellers in the region. Recognizing the import of her work, French president Emmanuel Macron in 2019 appointed her to his Presidential Council on Africa.

Most recently, Aché has worked as a mentor with the Resilient Foundation’s 8billion initiative, supported jointly by Connect4Climate and PROGREEN’s Sahel Landscape Restoration Program. This initiative equips young people to tell their own stories, offering hands-on instruction from established mentors like Aché to give rising filmmakers the training they need to effectively capture the impacts of climate change in their communities as well as the community response.

In her mentor role, Aché hosted a series of workshops giving participating Chadian youth invaluable guidance on camera operation, film editing, and narrative conventions in film. “I was very impressed by their motivation, commitment, and involvement,” she reflects. “One could see and feel their thirst for learning, and especially their passion for fighting for a noble cause.” To complete their course of study, the young filmmakers worked together on a pair of impactful documentary shorts.

Activist and 8billion mentor Aché Ahmat Moustapha.

The first, Pour elles et la planète (For the Women and the Planet), follows mononymous activist/entrepreneur Zara as she travels between communities educating local youth on climate change and showing them how they can take environmental action. At once empowering women and helping the environment through her work spreading sustainable menstruation hygiene, Zara is a model of determination in the face of adversity and a leading light in Chad’s youth climate movement.

The second short, Une seconde vie (A Second Life), tells the story of a conscientious young decorator named Mbaidiguim Benjamin, who picks up waste around his community and upcycles it into both practical necessities — like trash cans — and original works of art to inspire others.

Resilient will distribute the two films widely within the region, arranging community screenings that will serve both to showcase the young filmmakers’ work and to inspire others to pick up a camera themselves and follow suit. The films will also be uploaded to the WaterBear YouTube channel for international public access.

Aché gets hands-on with her filmmakers-in-training.

Aché took a dynamic, interactive approach with her instruction, giving her pupils ample time with the equipment to develop a tactile intuition for filmmaking. “The film and audiovisual trainings,” she says, “were an opportunity for the youth to express themselves, and in turn to spotlight everyday heroes in the age of climate change.” She is delighted to note that “some of the trained youth now aspire to a career in media, while others already have subsequent projects in mind.”