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Afghanistan Documentary Film Training 2012
Click here to learn more about the Afghanistan documentary training process. [gallery link="file"...
Afghanistan: Change You Can’t Sit and Talk About
He arrived at one of his first meetings with a convoy of 5 trucks and about 15 American soldiers, because it was too dangerous for him to travel unprotected. A group of farmers listened patiently to his pitch, but afterward, one of them approached Mr. Imerman and told him not to bring any soldiers the next time. “If they see you coming with all these soldiers, the Taliban will mark this field as a target, and then we all are going to suffer,” the farmer told him. Since he could not travel without security, the project was scrapped.
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Security and Opportunity for the Twenty-first Century
I began my tenure as U.S. Secretary of State by stressing the need to elevate diplomacy and development alongside defense — a “smart power” approach to solving global problems. To make that approach succeed, however, U.S. civilian power must be strengthened and amplified.
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Microlending in a War Zone
In a country where villagers typically do not farm enough land to actually subsist, where malnutrition and stunted growth are in fact the norm and where the situation is worsening as land is divided and passed on to children, Hakim began to realize that peace cannot be pursued separately from economic security and food security.
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‘Fruits of our Labor’ film screening Nov 10th at FCCS, Kabul
We hope you can join us for the screening of films made by the students of the Community Supported Film documentary filmmaking training. The...
Editing Final Projects: The final week of the training
Students are facing their successes and ‘challenges.’ We have helped one another by reviewing each other’s footage and providing fresh perspective. As is often the case, we come back from our shoots exhausted and quite sure that we have nothing with which to construct our intended story. An independent eye and ear can usually see beyond our foggy view.
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Press Conference
[Ed. 7/21: The last names of Afghan filmmakers and images of those still in the country have been removed due to the increasing insecurity in...
What About Afghan Women?
The best way to end oppression isn’t firepower but rather education and economic empowerment, for men and women alike, in ways that don’t create a backlash. As I wrote in my last column, schooling is possible even in Taliban-controlled areas, as long as implementation is undertaken in close consultation with elders and doesn’t involve Westerners on the ground.
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Rogue security companies threaten US gains in Afghanistan war
“If you want to know the driving force of corruption in Afghanistan, it’s not Afghan culture,” warns Anthony Cordesman, a security specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “It’s American contracting.”
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Training Week 3, Final project research and pitch reel production
The trainees are in the throws of final project pre-production, research, planning and aesthetic decision making. And, depending on how things are going, they are realizing the strengths and weaknesses of their story intentions. Their final project is a story determined by them but we have established economic development as the theme. A few have had to have the perseverance required by documentary filmmaking to start over with their research and character search as story ideas failed to materialize as hoped.
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Dr. Greg and Afghanistan
The conventional wisdom is that education and development are impossible in insecure parts of Afghanistan that the Taliban control. That view is wrong. … “Aid can be done anywhere, including where Taliban are,” Mr. Mortenson said. “But it’s imperative the elders are consulted, and that the development staff is all local, with no foreigners.”
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