Upwardly Global’s new report highlights Afghan newcomers’ $1.71 billion potential annual earnings and $227 million potential annual tax dollars, in an effort to spur legislative or administrative action and ensure stability for over 36k Afghans in the U.S.
Art Ranger, along with her colleague Michael Sheridan, review “War is a Racket” by Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler. This highly decorated war hero becomes dogged activist and tours the country giving speeches about how he was in effect, a bully for the corporations, then quit. Art Ranger and Sheridan share excerpts of the text as well as a piece of their minds. Sonic textures provided by our back up band, The Dirty Pens.
After decades of shrinking revenues, and an increasing expectation among consumers that journalism should be free, the global media industry has reached a crisis point. As legacy news outlets shut down or lay off staff, misinformation and conspiracy theories run rampant, blurring the line between fantasy and reality. Trust in our institutions of governance continues to decline, fueling an alarming rise in extremism and political violence across previously stable democracies. In the Global South, the impact of journalism’s decline has been even more striking, with the rise of a new generation of autocrats skilled in manipulating the online conversation to suit their consolidation of power.
After the 1994 [Zapatista] uprising, a boom in documentary films focused on indigenous themes and communities — but the overwhelming majority, Sojob says, were made by people from outside the state. Her own interest in storytelling began when, using a camera that her father gave her, she recorded an ongoing land conflict between the people of Chenalhó and the neighboring town of Chalchihuitán. Unless there was some sort of testimony, she realized, no one would know what was happening, “that it was us, ourselves, who had to get out everything that was happening within, from our own context, from our community.”
It was August 19th 2021, three days after Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. I received a startling email from Rahmat, one of our editors:
Dear Michael,
Hope you are doing well. Now I got to Poland. Warsaw airport. This is the contact number of a polish woman who was responsible to assemble us to travel to Poland. Hope you and Basir can find a solution to evacuate all members here.
A year ago today three Afghan families that worked with Community Supported Film (CSFilm) went through a horrific experience at the Kabul airport....
Night after night (daytime in Afghanistan) I used real-time on-the-ground intelligence information provided by vets and other organizations also working to evacuate people, to try and help guide families around the violent Taliban checkpoints, through the crushing crowds to the 20’ high walls of cement and barbed wire.
The filmmakers that participated in the New Immigrant and Refugee Visions project got together in person on July 30 for the first time since the beginning of COVID. They were joined by volunteers and CSFilm staff alumni who made the 15-week training and 1 year filmmaking project possible.
$44,375 dollars spent on legal and living expenses for Afghans. We need your continued generous support for the Fund for Afghan Evacuation and Resettlement as well as for our new online training program in documentary filmmaking.
The Art Ranger, aka artist Melissa Smedley, produced a podcast on the work and sounds of CSFilm. It includes an interview with CSFilm director, Michael Sheridan, and a sound collage from the films of CSFilm filmmakers and trainees.
Hopelessly and in tears, I spend the entire day in a corner of the house hoping that God may hear my voice and help me out of Afghanistan so that I can get back to school.
Afghan filmmakers and writers in exile spoke to their and their country’s trauma since the fall of the country to the Taliban. They shared their recent experiences and the films they made during Community Supported Film’s training and mentoring project: The Fruit of Our Labor – Afghan Perspectives in Film. Afghan filmmakers and writers in exile spoke to their and their country’s trauma since the fall of the country to the Taliban. They shared their recent experiences and the films they made during Community Supported Film’s training and mentoring project: The Fruit of Our Labor – Afghan Perspectives in Film. Michael Sheridan, CSFilm’s Director, spoke about the ongoing work of CSFilm to help evacuate and resettle Afghans and what the community can do to help.