It’s all coming together! Applications for documentary training are piling up!

September 2, 2010

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.

Five Dark Years – the Fall of Humanity and the Silencing of a Generation

Aug 15, 2026

Five years have passed since the fall of Afghanistan—a period that, for millions of people, has meant far more than lost years. It has been five years of humiliation, deprivation, fear, silence, and the gradual erosion of hope and human dignity.

Five years ago, Afghanistan fell into the hands of a group that, instead of building a future, closed the doors of life on its people. During these five years, the Taliban have not moved toward reform or change. On the contrary, with each passing day, restrictions have expanded and life has become increasingly difficult for millions of Afghans. The rights to education, work, freedom of movement, social participation, and many of the most basic freedoms of human beings—particularly women and girls—have been taken away.