President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities

Musician Bela Fleck takes the banjo back to Africa in Sascha Paladino's Throw Down Your Heart , one of 11 films in AFI Project: 20/20 for 2009.

Seven American and International filmmakers are participating in AFI Project: 20/20 for 2008-2009 and made their debut at the American Film Institute (AFI) AFI FEST 2008, presented by Audi, in Los Angeles in early November. This begins the third year of AFI Project: 20/20, which is an unprecedented international cultural exchange program that seeks to engage audiences here and abroad through filmmakers and their films. This cultural diplomacy initiative led by AFI is underwritten by the U.S. cultural agencies—the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)— and the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.

In remarks at AFI FEST welcoming the new filmmakers into the program, PCAH Committee member Phil Roman said, “For our Chairman Adair Margo and the President’s Committee, the importance of people to people diplomacy and the role of artists in cultural diplomacy has been one of our primary interests. You represent the shared vision of a modest project that the President’s Committee and its cultural partners believe can have a profound effect on international cultural understanding.”

From left to right, Sascha Paladino (Throw Down Your Heart), Daniel Junge (Iron Ladies of Liberia), Anthony Fabian (Skin), and Steven Gaydos, Variety film critic and moderator, addressing making a film in another country during an AFIFEST Talk/Show.

At AFI FEST, these filmmakers screened their films, interacted with audiences during question and answer periods and joined in far reaching discussions on filmmaking such as the AFI FEST Talk/Show, “No Borders: Global Filmmaking”. Sascha Paladino, who directed Throw Down Your Heart, captured the spirit of Project: 20/20 when he said about his film, “The making of the film in itself became a cultural exchange.” This view was also a thread that ran through the remarks of the other artists, each of whom took journeys into places and cultures that weren’t familiar to them in making their films.

Over the program’s first two years, 25 filmmakers representing 12 countries have participated in AFI Project: 20/20 and visited 16 countries and 12 U.S. cities. How independent films such those invited to participate in 20/20 find their audiences was the topic of the second Talk/Show, “What’s Next—the Future of Distribution.” According to the panelists, one clear challenge for independent films is that the handful of independent film distributors has shrunk considerably and the competition for getting an independent film seen at a festival is stiffer. And when people think of using film to build bridges between countries, one panelist observed that it is the mass-marketed products of the big U.S. studios not the independent films that come to mind. Yet Project: 20/20 and its roster of filmmakers has been very successful in bridging different cultures not only in its mix of international and U.S. filmmakers, but in meeting a very important need in sharing these films with audiences here and abroad.

This year one of 20/20’s invited directors Kief Davidson and his film, Kassim the Dream, won both the Grand Jury Prize for documentary, and tied for the documentary Audience Award at AFI FEST. The other invited filmmakers compromising AFI Project:20/20 this year are Skin directed by Anthony Fabian (UK); Iron Ladies Of Liberia co-directed by Daniel Junge (US) and Siatta Scott Johnson (Liberia); Of All The Things directed by Jody Lambert (US); Amal directed by Richie Mehta (Canada); Throw Down Your Heart directed by Sascha Paladino (US); and Alone In Four Walls directed by Alexandra Westmeier (Germany). Joining these seven filmmakers will be four artists from the 2008 program-- Andreas Mol Dalsgaard (Afghan Muscles), Hubbel Palmer (American Fork),Doug Pray (Big Rig). And Salif Traore (Faro, Goddess Of The Waters)—making a total of eleven films and filmmakers for 2009.

Over the next year AFI Project: 20/20 will travel to Honolulu, HI; Santa Fe; St. Louis, MO; Dallas, TX; Waterville, ME; as well as France, China, Peru, South Africa and several other countries to be determined.

AFI Project: 20/20 Launches its Third Year at AFI FEST