by Isabella Djalili-Devine and Annabel Djalili
In November 2025, we hosted a film screening in Islington, London, as part of the Our Shared Futures community film festival. We chose to show the film Thank You For the Rain (dir. Julia Dahr) a moving documentary that follows Kenyan farmer and climate activist Kisilu Musya as he documents the impact of climate change on his community, and later finds himself navigating the world of international climate negotiations.
We hosted the screening under Tiny Speck Productions and Onederful. Tiny Speck is a production company dedicated to telling stories with social impact, that, we hope, add a tiny speck to the big conversations of our time. Much of our slate explores themes of migration, climate change, and community, so we were excited to celebrate a film that so powerfully inhabits that same space.
One of our projects at Tiny Speck also sits directly at the intersection of climate change and migration, so we actively seek out and champion work that approaches these themes with humanity and imagination. Thank You For the Rain felt like a perfect fit because it is rooted in lived experience, and shows us what persistence and courage looks like in the face of overwhelming system of injustice.
Onederful was born out of this same curiosity: how can art help us think differently about climate change? It’s a sister project to Tiny Speck, focused on celebrating creative work and social action that opens up new perspectives – emotionally, culturally, and ethically – on how we respond to the climate crisis. For us, the intersection of arts and climate is an interest, but it’s also an ongoing question: what kinds of stories help people feel connected enough to care, and courageous enough to act?
That’s why participating in the Our Shared Futures community film festival felt so meaningful, as it created a space where people could gather, reflect, and talk together. In a time when climate conversations can feel abstract, polarised, or overwhelming, there was something quite radical about sitting in a room with others and thinking aloud.
We were lucky to host the screening at ARC Collective, a beautiful venue in Islington whose values around community and social impact aligned so naturally with the festival. A local bakery, EZ & Moss, generously provided vegan pastries that helped set the tone for a warm, welcoming evening.
We invited friends, organisations, and local community groups to attend, and were genuinely moved by the mix of people who came along. The discussion that followed felt open and engaged. We offered a few guiding questions and highlighted particular moments from the film to help ground the discussion, giving people a common place to begin from while allowing the conversation to unfold organically.
We were also delighted to be joined by Monica Maghami, who had come straight from the COP30 conference in Brazil and shared reflections from being inside those global negotiations. In the film, Kisilu travels to COP21, and Monica spoke about how closely his experience mirrored hers.
The conversation ranged widely from people sharing their desire for a deeper relationship with nature, to critiques of Western cultural habits that distance us from taking responsibility, to reflections about the disconnect between what is agreed on paper at international summits like COP and what is enacted in reality. Others shared stories of local green initiatives they’ve started, or small ways they’re trying to live differently.
What stayed with us most was how the film gave us a common reference point – a human story – from which many different thoughts, doubts, and hopes could emerge. Hosting the screening reminded us that while films don’t change the world on their own, they can change the quality of conversation we’re able to have together.
