In less than one month our five-week intensive training in documentary filmmaking begins in Afghanistan.  Production equipment, donated and purchased, is rolling in the door.  The passport is stamped, shots are taken and ticket bought for departure on September 13th. A staff of co-trainers, assistants, translator and editors is coming together.

Our project is particularly lucky to have Medhi Zafari taking the lead in Kabul. Mehdi is an Afghan filmmaker and educator who has worked for some years with Ateliers Varan, a French film training organization working in the observational documentary style of the legendary filmmaker Jean Rouch.  Mehdi and colleagues at The Killid Group, our Afghan co-producers, are helping to pull all the logistics together on the ground.  And, applications for the training are piling up!  It is a very exciting time after 18 months of development and planning.

Thanks to your support this project will help strengthen the Afghan news and documentary sectors, which are both seriously lacking and critically important to the dissemination of objective and accurate information in the country’s intensifying fight against extremism.