The Afghan Production Training Process

Building Local Capacity: Giving Voice to Afghans through Filmmaking

In the interest of amplifying the voices and expertise of Afghans, Community Supported Film conducted an intensive 5-week training of 10 Afghans in documentary production in the fall of 2010. Within the complex environment of contemporary Afghanistan, all ten trainees – including 4 women and 6 men, representative of 3 different ethnic groups – successfully completed the program, developing and producing ten character-driven short documentaries. The resulting films are gathered in the collection The Fruit of Our Labor: Afghan Perspectives in Film.  Several trainees went on to win contracts for three commissioned film projects which have since been produced and broadcast, and local ownership was established with the creation of the regionally licensed Afghan Community Supported Film Association.

Voice of America produced a special report on the training and production work of Community Supported Film in Afghanistan. Special thanks to Philippa Levenberg for her work on this and to trainee Hasib’s particiaption.

[Ed. 7/21: This report has been removed to protect the identity of the filmmakers due to the increasing insecurity in Afghanistan.]

Click on the following links to see and read about the training in action and my journal entries from this time in Kabul:

> It’s all coming together! Training applications are piling up
> The Work Begins
> Interviewing Candidates
> Meet our Trainees
> Daily Affairs in Sunny Kabul
> Training Finishes Second Week
> Training Week 3, Final Project Research and Pitch Reel Production
> Training Press Conference
> Editing Final Projects, The Final Week of the Training
> The Training Concludes with Kabul Screening
> Screening Tour: The Fruits of Our Labor
>Trainee’s Proposals Win Broadcast Contracts!


Training Process Photo Gallery:

Click thumbnails to view larger.