About
Sophie Ansel is a storyteller and adventurer, delivering stories through the medium of film, journalism, novels, radio and documentaries. She has a deep love for exploring different cultures and defines herself as a human rights and environmentalist advocate. Her many experiences in places all over the world have led her to discover values of courage, solidarity and nobleness in people deprived of power and of voice, yet armed with an incredible resilience and will to survive.
Sophie has investigated issues such as human trafficking and slavery in South East Asia and was one of the first journalists to campaign and denounce the genocide of the Rohingya in Burma within French media coverage. To denounce the atrocities of human trafficking and boat slavery, authority corruption and human rights violations against refugees, Sophie wrote graphic novel ‘Burmese Moons’, which will be released in 2017.
She has also written ‘First They Erased Our Name’ (original title ‘Nous les innommables, un taboo birman’), the biography of Rohingya Habib and an exploration of the genocide taking place against the Rohingya people, who she followed for six years from Burma to the detention centres of Australia. Sophie has also written ‘Forbidden Tears’ (original title ‘Les Larmes interdites’), the true story of a 4-year-old girl forced into resilience during the Pol Pot genocide. Sophie also wrote graphic novel ‘Burmese Moons’, which will be released in English in 2017.
After living and traveling in South East Asia for five years from 2001, Sophie birthed a great concern for the environment as a result of seeing the destructive activities of humans on the natural landscape as she explored oceans and tropical rainforest.‘I always believe I’m part of the population who has a power that the majority of people do not: I have a voice and I’d like to use it well. I want to give a voice to the voiceless.’
Sophie’s heart for human rights led to her desire to be as equally involved with the movement that aims to give a voice to nature, animals and the planet. In 2013 after time in Indonesia’s waters to qualify as a professional diver, Sophie joined several missions with the Ocean Agency to document the state of the ocean. She also worked for Ocean71 magazine following the work of scientists in American Samoa.
After directing TV reports for the French National Television in Indonesia, Burma, Cambodia and Thailand, Sophie co- produced with Seaview 360 a series of 5 films for the Great Barrier Reef Foundation in 2015 before working on the ‘Chasing Coral’ (Official Selection, Sundance Film Festival 2017) American film production in 2016 as a camera operator. She produced another film in Monaco with Seaview 360 before being selected to join the program VR FOR GOOD, launched by Oculus.