Mediothek Afghanistan in Jalalabad successfully offered a workshop for documentary film making, held by German filmmaker and journalist Martin Gerner on the 26th of June 2012. The one-day workshop was assisted by more than 20 film directors, producers and actors from Ningarhar province. All participants welcomed the initiative as a first step for an improved production of documentary filmmaking in the region.
While Jalalabad has a flourishing film output of fiction film and series, documentary filmmaking still faces many problems, participants un anonymously said.
„There is no market up to now for documentary and even artistic documentary films“, one of the participants said, „but we definitely feel the need to enlarge our capacities in this field.“
Film director Martin Gerner, who has been acting as a media trainer in Afghanistan for nearly a decade now, introduced essential criteria and rules for successful documentary filmmaking in the workshop and raised awareness of how best to prepare for the national as well as international documentary markets.
„This starting initiative was really needed“, a member of the Ningarhar civil society agreed to say, „the workshop can be an impulse for an own additional film production in the region.“
Experience shown that documentary films, if well researched, edited and responsibly circulated, can be an essential means of creating public awareness and a tool to engage in further strengthening civil society.
Participants stated the hope for a follow-up workshop in Jalalabad that would help improve technical and script writing skills for documentary filmmaking.
