Film
Rising Tides, Raising Voices
Indigenous Pacific Islanders with Disabilities Race Against Time to Ensure that When the Next Disaster Strikes, No One Is Left Behind
The Pacific region is among the most impacted in the world by climate change. Among its low-lying islands, there is no escape from rising coastal waters and extreme weather events. Freshwater exists in precarious balance with the encroaching sea. As part of a legacy of systemic oppression, Indigenous Pacific Islanders with disabilities are particularly at risk. Because they are less likely to be formally employed, their livelihoods depend on fishing and farming – which have been significantly affected by climate change. During disasters, the structural barriers that Pacific Islanders with disabilities face every day – like the lack of accessible information and transportation – can become a death sentence. Faced with the urgency of increasing disasters, disabled grassroots activists across the Pacific are championing disability-inclusive climate action. It’s a fight not just against nature, but against a world that often overlooks people with disabilities. Shot by Disability Justice Project fellows and staff, Rising Tides, Raising Voices calls for intersectional, inclusive, community-led solutions to the encroaching global crisis.
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Filmmaker: Jody Santos
A human rights filmmaker, Jody Santos (she/her) has traveled to some 30 countries across five continents, documenting everything from the trafficking of girls in Nepal to the widespread and often abusive practice of institutionalizing children with disabilities in the U.S. and other countries. Her documentaries have appeared on public television and cable networks like Discovery Channel, and her work has also been featured on New England Public Radio and in advocacy journals like Mad in America. Regardless of the medium, Santos’s goal has been to highlight those narratives that are usually unseen or underreported.
Santos is the recipient of American Women in Radio & Television’s Gracie Allen Award, and she was nominated for an Emmy for a special report on black-market guns airing on NBC Boston. Her documentary, Rising Tides, Raising Voices, has screened at festivals worldwide, earning accolades such as Best International Film at The Together! 2024 Disability Film Festival organized by the UK Disabled People’s Council. In 2024, the film was featured on International Day of Persons with Disabilities at UNESCO’s inaugural Festival of Short Films on Disability Inclusion in Paris and at a screening in Rome hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO).
Santos is an associate teaching professor at Northeastern University’s School of Journalism. She is the author of Daring to Feel: Violence, the News Media, and Their Emotions published by Rowman & Littlefield’s Lexington Books.
