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Meet the YDF Programs Manager Raeshma Razvi

Photo of Raeshma RazviRaeshma Razvi joined the Council in September 2006. She is a filmmaker by training and has worked with youth for more than six years.

Before joining the Council, she was the artistic director of the Documentary Project for Refugee Youth in New York. In that position she helped young refugees from West Africa and the Balkans create videos, photographs and writing about their experiences. Before that, she trained New York high school students to produce, shoot and edit their own documentaries.

Razvi’s own work includes a 60-minute documentary called “Home,” shot in India and the United States, about the nature and location of home as viewed by two Indian American families.

Razvi holds a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature from Northwestern University and a master’s in film and video from Columbia College.

You can reach Razvi at rrazvi@calhum.org.

“How I See It”
Youth Digital Filmmakers Project

Youth making videos about their lives, communities

The following eight projects are engaging a variety of young Californians in making films about what they see and experience. The youths are creating films on a variety of topics, but central to each film is a focus on the broad theme of “connections” and “disconnections.” “The theme provides a common denominator among all the projects, said Raeshma Razvi, an experienced filmmaker who is managing the project for the Council.

The projects are being guided over the next year by experienced project directors, award-winning filmmakers and humanities experts. When completed in summer 2008, the films will be screened locally in the young people’s communities, broadcast on cable television channels and available for viewing on the Council’s website.

Map of Project Locations

See press release

See articles about projects in:
Youth Digital Filmmakers is a program of the Council’s statewide California Stories: How I See It campaign, in partnership with the Digital Storytelling Institute of the Community Technology Foundation of California.

SAN FRANCISCO
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Sponsor: Conscious Youth Media Crew

A group of inner-city San Francisco youths are writing, directing and producing a narrative film exploring redevelopment issues.

SISKIYOU COUNTY
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Sponsor: Siskiyou Arts Council

A team of young filmmakers from the towns of Mt. Shasta, Happy Camp and the Karuk Nation are creating a film about the geography, culture and history of Siskiyou County.

Read an article about the project.

CONCORD
“Don’t Erase My History”
Sponsor: Ally Action Inc.

A group of ten Ally Action LGBT youth and Ally youth leaders are working with Ally Action staff to create a short documentary film about LGBT history in California and participants' connection to that history.

 

 

OAKLAND
“I Ain’t Leaving”
Sponsor: East Bay Asian Youth Center

A group of Cambodian American youth from Oakland’s San Antonio neighborhood are creating a film about their struggle to protect their emotional and physical connection to the Oak Park Apartments – their home and a center of the Cambodian American community in Oakland – amidst the forces of gentrification and tenant organizing.

Read an article about the project.

FRESNO
“Common Ground: Sowing the Seeds of Understanding in the San Joaquin Valley”
Sponsor: Center for Multicultural Cooperation

A group of Fresno young people involved in a youth leadership program at Fresno’s Center for Multicultural Cooperation are researching and creating a digital story about the history of Hmong, African American and Latino farmers and farmworkers in the Central Valley and their connection to that history.

LOS ANGELES
“My Spaces: Homeless Youth Explore the Geography of Disconnection”
Sponsor: Covenant House California

Formerly homeless youths are creating a documentary tracing their connections and disconnections to the various spaces they inhabited while homeless.

LONG BEACH
“My Reality and My Vision: Stories from Long Beach”
Sponsor: Khmer Girls in Action

Khmer young women and girls, ages 14 to 18, are creating a film exploring the refugee experience of their families and how they see their own place in Long Beach now and in the future.

LODI
"Finding Our Own Way: Teens in Lodi"
Sponsor: Lodi High School

Juniors and seniors in a video production class at Lodi High School are making a series of documentaries addressing the growing concern in Lodi about the lack of connection of Lodi teens to their community and school.

© 2007 The California Council for the Humanities