1. Michael Sheridan, Director and Founder • 31 Lenox Street • Boston, MA 02118 • 617-834-7206 • michael@csfilm.org
[CSFilm] put cameras in the hands of Afghans and
gave them training to make films about theirlives.
The result is an unprecedented intimate look at
Afghan life with exchanges no outsider has been
privy to before.
- Robin Young, Host of NPR’s
“Here and Now”
Community Supported Film in Action
Overview
Community Supported Film (CSFilm) strengthens the documentary filmmaking capacity in developing communities
where the dissemination of objective and accurate information is essential to good governance and equitable economic
development.
Local women and men are trained to produce stories on their
community’s social and economic issues. The films are
screened in public engagement campaigns to influence local
and international perspectives on sustainable paths to a more
peaceful and equitable world.
Inspired by the model of Community Supported Agriculture,
Community Supported Film invites supporters to invest in
local documentary training and production. The stories told
through these trainings nourish an understanding of the world that isn’t available in the mainstream market.
Approach
Community Supported Film’s trainers have decades of teaching and production experience in documentary filmmaking
with a focus on economic and social development. We provide:
1. Intensive capacity building in social issue documentary filmmaking to
storytellers and social-change agents in underrepresented communities.
2. Mentoring of the production of objective and accurate stories about local
social and economic development issues.
3. Stories that build bridges and spark action between the communities of
filmmakers, the communities in development and an international community of
concerned citizens and organizations.
Case-Study: Amplifying Afghan Voices
In 2010, Community Supported Film used its action-based learning techniques to
conduct an intensive production training in documentary filmmaking and video-
journalism for Afghans, in the interest of amplifying their voices and expertise.
Process
Community Supported Film led an intensive 5-week training of ten Afghans in documentary production in the fall of
2010. After three weeks of rigorous exercises, each student was required to develop and produce a character driven
Amplifying local voices through documentary
training, storytelling and public engagement

2. Michael Sheridan, Director and Founder • 31 Lenox Street • Boston, MA 02118 • 617-834-7206 • michael@csfilm.org
short documentary. The resulting films are gathered in the collection The Fruit of
Our Labor: Afghan Perspectives in Film, offering a first-hand Afghan point of view
rarely seen or heard outside of Afghanistan. The films bring to life Afghans’ daily
efforts to address their challenging social and economic conditions.
Public Engagement
The use of the films to influence and educate is an integral part of Community
Supported Film’s work. The Fruit of Our Labor films have been seen by thousands of
Americans, Afghans, and internationals, contributing to public discourse and the
formation of nuanced opinion about the immediate and long-term future of
Afghanistan.
The Fruit of Our Labor was the centerpiece of a Congressional Briefing on Capitol
Hill and have been used to stimulate dialogue in dozens of classrooms, conferences,
town halls, universities and festivals across the country, including at the US
Institute of Peace in Washington, DC; the World Bank in Kabul, Afghanistan; and the Asia Society in New York City. Death
to the Camera won Best Documentary at the Autumn Human Rights Film Festival in Kabul, Afghanistan, received a
$10,000 award at the Swiss International Short Film Festival in Winterthur, and was an official selection for Hot Docs
2012 in Toronto, Canada.
Recent and Current Projects
In post-earthquake Haiti, CSFilm conducted a similar bottom-up training and production process that resulted in a
collection of ten remarkable short films, Owning Our Future-Haitian Perspectives in Film. Going beyond disaster
reporting, these films incorporate the experiences and points of view of Haitians – a rarity in the international
conversation about what has and has not happened in the long and painful history of Haiti’s economic, social and
political development.
In 2017-18 CSFilm is collaborating with the Boston-based Irish International Immigrant Center (IIIC) and other local
and national immigrant and refugee organizations on New Immigrant and Refugee Visions (NIRV). NIRV is a
messaging project designed to inform US public opinion about the experience of new immigrants and refugees. NIRV
will train new immigrants and refugees to produce a series of short non-fiction films that will amplify their stories and
perspectives. In the current climate of anti-immigrant sentiment among some US communities, this initiative will
produce narratives that focus on the integration challenges faced by immigrants and the contributions they make to
our culture, economy and social fabric. Their narratives will be used by organizations nation-wide to stimulate
conversations that advance systemic change.
Michael Sheridan, director of CSFilm, is available to speak on the work of CSFilm, to present the Haitian and Afghan
made films and/or delve in to the subject of his Tedx talk – Transforming News and Views through Local Perspectives -
why locally sourced reporting is essential for a healthy information diet. CSFilm is also interested in opportunities to
partner on future documentary filmmaking trainings and local production.
The role of film in informing social change is clearly Michael Sheridan’s [Director, CSFilm] passion and vocation. His work
throughout Africa, Asia and the Americas provides him with the experience to move with ease in unfamiliar environments
to gain trust and to develop relationships that allow him to produce insightful stories on many pressing global issues.
- Ray Offenheiser, President, Oxfam America