Brewing Tea in a Kettle of War

Michael Sheridan, Thursday, January 27, 2011

4:30 pm, Porter Hall 100 (Gregg Hall)

I’ve grappled for a long time with how to most effectively exist as a filmmaker, activist and educator. My mother says that as a child when she would ask me what I wanted to do I would ask back, “Well, what’s everybody else doing?” For a long time I perceived this as a weakness of character. More recently I’ve come to understand that possibly (in addition to insecurity) a participatory instinct was at the core of my childhood question. Participation is not a strong impulse in western society where individualism is more commonly the driving force.

During my filmmaking career I have focused primarily on stories investigating the role of participation in the economic and social development of poor and fragile communities. Only recently have I come to fully understand how these lessons can effectively be translated into a holistic approach to participatory filmmaking, activism and education. A process is emerging that trains local filmmakers to tell their community’s stories and shares these with concerned citizens from the international community who then use the local filmmakers unique perspective to educate their own communities.

Two years ago Michael Sheridan began research and fundraising for a film on alternative approaches to peace making in Afghanistan. A story idea developed to show Afghan villagers' perspectives of what it is like having different outsiders coming into their communities supposedly trying to help them. The thesis of the story would be that bottom-up Afghan participation is a necessity for long-term sustainable peace and development.

After two visits to Afghanistan, including one challenging pre-production shoot, Michael learned that Afghan participation in the filmmaking process was also a necessity if intimate revealing stories were to be told. In December he returned from a life changing experience of teaching and learning from Afghans during a documentary production training. With what the Afghans learned they can develop their own filmmaking careers and begin making the film Brewing Tea in Kettle of War. With what Michael has learned he is re-visioning how to go about being a filmmaker, activist and educator.

Brief Biography

Michael Sheridan’s filmmaking addresses issues of social and economic development and the tipping point between order and chaos. Michael's interest in these issues arises from his experiences of families falling apart and reuniting and societies teetering on the verge of collapse and recovering from conflict and disaster.

All of Michael's work is influenced by his extensive travels throughout Europe, South Asia, Africa and the Americas. In the 90s he started producing documentaries on issues of hunger, poverty and community development. Soon after he also began teaching filmmaking at the community and university level. He served as Senior Fulbright Scholar in Indonesia teaching and working on new films during the 2007-08 academic year.

In 2009 artist Laura Baring-Gould came up with the idea of Community Supported Film (CSF), based on the model of Community Supported Agriculture, to support Michael’s unfunded work on a film in Afghanistan. Since then CSF has rapidly found its footing and developed a mission to work with emerging filmmakers in poor and fragile countries to tell stories that build a bridge between their people and concerned citizens in the international community.