At the beginning of this year, from 22 January 2026 to 26 January 2026, the project teams of “Film Making for Social Change” — Cross Culture International Foundation CCIF (Malta), Step Up Stop Slavery (Cyprus), and “Shelter ‘Safe House’” (Latvia) — met in Valletta, Malta, to implement the final project activity: a short film festival.
The aim of the project is to implement various preventive measures to reduce human trafficking, with film being one of the key tools. During the project, the organisations Cross Culture International Foundation (Malta), Step Up Stop Slavery (Cyprus), and “Shelter ‘Safe House’” (Latvia) jointly produced the short film “Not as I Thought”, which portrays labour exploitation through the story of the main character, Ahmed. The story is based on real-life events.
Throughout the project, the organisations not only acquired skills in scriptwriting, filming, film editing, sound, lighting, and special effects, but also passed this knowledge on to young people in Latvia, Cyprus, and Malta. As a result, young people in all three countries jointly created an additional nine short films addressing topics such as online grooming, labour exploitation, sexual exploitation, recruitment,
servitude, and other significant issues reflecting the phenomenon of human trafficking in today’s society.
On 24 January, the organisations came together for the project’s main event, the film festival, where visitors had the opportunity to watch all the short films created during the project. After the screenings, an essential concluding element was a question- and-answer session with the project participants, who had been an integral part of the entire project and were key to achieving such meaningful results. Participants shared their experiences and emotions, emphasising that creating films about human trafficking was emotionally challenging and required a strong sense of responsibility, as the stories portrayed were based on real events.
Participants highlighted that the project title truly reflects reality, these films were genuinely created for social change. This is demonstrated by the involvement of survivors themselves in the filmmaking process, as well as by the fact that for some participants this project was their first exposure to the issue of human trafficking. The organisations emphasise that such creative projects are extremely important for the prevention of human trafficking, as they enable the involvement of local communities especially young people in the process, thus preparing the next socially responsible generation to engage in activities aimed at preventing human trafficking.
The project will conclude on 28 February 2026. Until then, audiences in Latvia, Cyprus, and Malta will have the opportunity to watch all the films created within the project, as February is dedicated to the dissemination of results. Stay tuned for updates.
The project “Film Making for Social Change” is funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission. The project is coordinated by Cross Culture International Foundation (CCIF Malta), in partnership with Shelter Safe House (Latvia) and Step Up StopSlavery (Cyprus).
View the films here.