CSFilm in Action | CSFilm Manifesto
What we believe
Community Supported Film believes that if people learn about the world’s challenges from the local perspective they will be better able to demand the right actions from their governments and to support effective humanitarian responses.
The predominance of information about the world’s challenges, however, is still produced by outsiders in a top-down colonial news system guided by external self interest. If crisis, disaster or war came to your town would you want to let the world know what was happening from your perspective or would you want a foreigner to tell your story?
We believe that those affected by inequality or injustice are best positioned to report on their community’s issues. High quality locally made documentary storytelling provides essential insights, for community members and policymakers, into sustainable paths to a more equitable and peaceful world.
What we do
Community Supported Film (CSFilm) trains women and men in under- and mis-represented communities to effectively communicate their pressing issues through documentary filmmaking. Their films are used in local and international Screen&Discuss campaigns to inform public opinion and policy from town halls to the halls of congress.
We focus on people, places and situations – be they in Afghanistan, Haiti, or the US – that the public hears a lot about in the news but seldom understands from the local perspective. In collaboration with local media and community organizations we select people with backgrounds in any form of storytelling, an interest in their community’s development and the capacity to use what they will learn in their ongoing work.
We provide:
1. Capacity building in social issue documentary filmmaking and video-journalism;
2. Mentoring of the production of engaging lived-reality stories;
3. Distribution of these films to ignite action by an international community of concerned citizens.
Through this process local video journalism is strengthened and local and international change agents are informed from the bottom up and the inside out.
Support Our Work
Inspired by the model of Community Supported Agriculture, Community Supported Film asks concerned citizens from around the world to invest directly in the production of high quality films with a locally-made perspective on social and economic development issues. In return their films nourish a complex understanding of human development that isn’t available in the mainstream media.
Please consider making a donation! You can also subscribe to CSFilm to get issue and project updates.
