Summer Updates from Saving Mes Aynak Team!
Al Jazeera's promo for Saving Mes Aynak. Click image to view.
An updated version of Saving Mes Aynak hit the air on Al Jazeera English on June 29th and streamed online for free on Al Jazeera's website for a limited time (outside the US). Thank you so much for all who watched and shared this important film.
Viewers expressed their excitement and emotional responses to the broadcast on social media, showing solidarity as always:
#SavingMesAynak an incredibly powerful, moving documentary on the fight to save Afghan culture - a must watch!! pic.twitter.com/uD35aBIuqn
— Annis Turner (@anniskturner) June 29, 2016
The Buddhas Of Mes Aynak: It's Time To Save Greatest Treasures Of Afghanistan - https://t.co/bsjXafYcXb https://t.co/DNq4BBfh8j
— AlvaroDBraga (@alisbuna) June 30, 2016
@narendramodi Pls consider sending Indian ASI team and/or professors, students of archaeological studies 2 this site https://t.co/Jyg47q7zj5
— Trilochana (@Trilochana888) July 1, 2016
Today is the rebroadcast of updated version...this is worthy of appointment viewing.
— Mark LaMet (@LaMetTVNews) June 29, 2016
Hoping to see it myself! https://t.co/fTm8qCt5aF
@AJEnglish @SavingMesAynak @AJWitness It shouldn't be on the archeologists shoulders. We have all failed the Afghan people.
— Hans van Dijk (@hansvandijk1603) June 30, 2016
@AJWitness @SavingMesAynak @AJEnglish I'm watching this and my heart is breaking. Stories and history gone, forever
— Lady Lovely Lumps (@Chemu18Cheryl) June 30, 2016
Thank you again for all those who made this successful re-broadcast possible! If you are outside U.S., you can stream Saving Mes Aynak online via VHX (still free for people in Afghanistan)! We now have French, Dutch, German, Italian, and Japanese subtitles available for the VHX streaming service. Impassioned viewers of Saving Mes Aynak volunteered to translate the film, making it possible for us to share the film with even wider range of audiences.
Interested in translating the film into a new language? Please visit here.
If you are in the U.S., we are excited to announce that home DVDs of Saving Mes Aynak will be released in November! Please stay tuned - you can purchase the DVDs both websites of Saving Mes Aynak and Kartemquin Films.
Saving Mes Aynak continues to travel the world this summer! We have screenings being organized by audience members in Luxembourg and Kabul, Afghanistan. Spring 2016 was one of the busiest period for Mes Aynak, spanning Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sweden, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, India, Hong Kong, France, Canada, and in the U.S., Seattle, New York, San Francisco, San Diego, and Santa Cruz.
Now Saving Mes Aynak will make its way to the Art Institute of Chicago, a premier museum in the U.S., Italy, Singapore, France, Greece, Lebanon, and Iran. We are also honored to be invited for an encore screening with the San Francisco Green Film Festival this October at the San Francisco Public Library! Furthermore, Saving Mes Aynak will be receiving the prestigious Green Spark Award at American Conservation Film Festival happening the 3rd and 4th weekend of October in Virginia.
Saving Mes Aynak will hit Los Angeles, New York, and Washington DC later this year through the China Onscreen Biennial (COB), a showcase of Chinese film and media arts for American audiences. Saving Mes Aynak will be a part of COB's program called Dunhuang Projected, "named after the eponymous town in the Gobi Desert in northwestern China that was an important nexus of the Silk Road from 400-1400 CE, and the gateway for Buddhism from India into China. The town’s complex of caves hold the largest extant collection of Buddhist art in the world, and is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site," according to the organizers.
Thanks to the initiatives of students, professors, and museum professionals, we continue to travel colleges and museums across the country! Director Brent E. Huffman will be in attendance for the post-screening Q&A at the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Missouri. McDaniel College will host Saving Mes Aynak for the World Wise Documentary series.
Interested in hosting a screening of Saving Mes Aynak? Contact us.
Saving Mes Aynak is the winner of Green Spark Award at American Conservation Film Festival and the 37th Telly Awards & People's Choice Award.
The American Conservation Film Festival committee chose two winners of the Green Spark Award out of nearly 300 films submitted this year, citing Saving Mes Aynak as "the most deserving of the Green Spark Award for drawing attention to a conservation hero." We are honored for this recognition and excited that Brent will be receiving the award in person in October!
A testimony of continued support from the audience: Saving Mes Aynak won the 37th People's Choice Telly Award! Thank you so much for all who voted for the People's Choice awards. We could not have done it without you.
An illustration created by National Geographic Magazine depicting what Mes Aynak may have looked like 2,000 years ago.
The fate of Mes Aynak is more uncertain than ever. Rana Think Tank, an Afghan group of political and economic analysts, recently urged MCC to re-commence mining, as MCC allegedly attempts to decline the payment of premium to the government, insisting the government to hand over the entire Mes Aynak area. All excavation efforts in Mes Aynak seem to have slowed down throughout this year, with just another devastating suicide attack in Kabul debilitating the well-being of Afghan citizens. Moreover, the World Bank has threatened to end funding at Mes Aynak at some point this summer.
Nonetheless, we continue to do our work to raise awareness and send necessary help to the archaeologists in Mes Aynak. It's you, the audience, can make a difference.
Together we MUST SAVE MES AYNAK in 2016!
http://www.savingmesaynak.com/get-involved/