This 360 VR film – created with the support of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) – tells the harrowing yet hopeful story of two pregnant Syrian refugee women. The film was a finalist for the Cine Golden Eagle Awards best VR Short 2017.

Worldwide, 500 women die daily in crisis situations due to complications in pregnancy and childbirth. But that figure is just a number…unless you meet the women at risk of becoming a part of those statistics. By using 360 film to tell this story, UNFPA wanted you to feel like you had met these women first hand and could directly empathise with the situation they were in.

I came up with a proposal about how I felt we could best tell this story in VR and, as this was my first pitch to make a VR film, I surrounded myself with a small handful of crew who already had experience in the field and we were able to win the bid and make the film, which premiered in the US Congress and at the first UN Summit on Refugees in New York 2017 and was successful in its goal of raising awareness and funds for the work of UNFPA with pregnant women in conflict zones.