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Meet the YDF Programs Manager Raeshma Razvi

Photo of Raeshma Razvi
Raeshma 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 make videos about their lives, communities

Youth Digital Filmmakers, the signature program of "How I See It," engaged youth in eight communities in California in making films about issues in their lives and communities. The young people, mentored by humanities scholars and experienced filmmakers, produced amazing films on a variety of topics, from the legacy of genocide in Long Beach and a quest for gay history by LGBT teens in the San Francisco Bay Area to the challenges of growing up in rural Siskiyou County. All the films were screened locally and three were selected for showing at the 2008 Los Angeles Film Festival, a huge validation of the young filmmakers’ efforts. Distribution efforts are now under way to bring the films to a wider audience.

Youth Digital Filmmakers is a Council program conducted in partnership with the Digital Storytelling Institute of the ZeroDivide

Map of Project Locations

See press releases

See news coverage about YDF projects.

 

SAN FRANCISCO
"A Choice of Weapons"
Sponsor: Conscious Youth Media Crew

San Francisco youth document how redevelopment is affecting their neighborhood in 85-minute narrative film. Find out more.

SISKIYOU COUNTY
“Voices between the Mountains – Coming of age in the Siskiyous.”
Sponsor: Siskiyou Arts Council

Mt. Shasta-Happy Camp students’ film explores challenges of growing up in small rural town.
Find out more.
Read about the project.

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

Film by East Bay LGBT youth explores the absence of LGBTQ history in our schools and features interviews with history-makers State Senator Sheila Kuehl, Phyllis Lyon, Holy Old Man Bull, Cherrie Moraga, and Jewelle Gomez.
Find out more.

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

Oakland youths create documentary film on the Cambodian-American experience of growing up in East Oakland's Oak Park Apartments.
Find out more.
Read about the project.

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

Fresno teens create a documentary film tracing the lives of three San Joaquin Valley families who came to California to work the land and create new lives.
Find out more.
Read about the project.

LOS ANGELES
“Hidden Hollywood, At-Risk Youth Explore the Geography of Disconnection”
Sponsor: Covenant House California

Films by formerly homes teens explore the challenges of living on the streets.
Find out more.

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

Film by first-generation Khmer American teens explores the legacy of the Khmer Rouge War.
Find out more.

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

Lodi high schoolers’ films focus on disconnections in teen life.
Find out more.
Read about the project.

© 2007 The California Council for the Humanities