Internationally Acclaimed Documentary We Came Home Nominated at DocMiami International Film Festival

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best International Documentary at the Sao Paulo Film Festival, We Came Home nominated and screening at DocMiami International Film Festival.
 
Dec. 5, 2012 - PRLog -- Ariana Delawari, director and producer of the award-winning film We Came Home, announced today the film’s nomination for Most Inspirational Documentary at the 2012 DocMiami International Film Festival.

We Came Home documents musician Ariana Delawari's decade-long raw and heartfelt personal journey through post-9/11 Afghanistan. Delawari weaves together layers of her family’s story and Afghanistan's rich cultural past, juxtaposed with the recording of her album Lion of Panjshir in present day Kabul and Los Angeles. As Delawari experiences the threat of war and corruption, she urgently grasps the regional, global and cultural ramifications when art, personal freedoms and hope are destroyed, and why Afghanistan cannot be forgotten once more.

The world premiere of We Came Home took place in October at the Sao Paulo International Film Festival where it received the highest honor, the Grand Jury Prize for Best International Documentary. This was followed by its US premiere at the AFI Fest at The Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, California.

In addition to the recognition garnered by the film Ariana's album Lion of Panjshir, which was released on David Lynch's MC record label, has also received international attention.  In October, Delawari was invited to Kabul to speak and perform at the inaugural TEDx event, as well as the Sound Central Rock Festival. The inaugural Sound Central Rock Festival event last year marked Kabul’s first rock concert in 30 years. After her appearance at the DocMiami International Film Festival, she will make her return to Kabul for a performance and panel discussion at the United Nations.

Through her live musical performances and her documentary film We Came Home, Ariana Delawari is thrilled to be sharing her message on an international scale. “This is a very personal story. It’s a very raw look into my journey over the last 10 years and my family’s story over several decades. I made the film because of my love for Afghanistan. Our audiences have left the film deeply moved, inspired, and with a yearning to visit Afghanistan. That has been incredibly rewarding for our team.” said Delawari. “I am really looking forward to DocMiami, and we are so honored to have been nominated for an award. One of the themes of our film is immigration, so it is wonderful to be part of a festival in such a diverse and lively environment. I hope that our film continues to reach the hearts of the world and brings a new vision of peace to Afghanistan and beyond.”

The official screening for We Came Home will take place Saturday, December 8, 2012, at 7:45 pm. Director/Producer Ariana Delawari will attend the DocMiami International Film Festival to present her film.

About Ariana Delawari (Director, Producer)
Ariana is a multimedia artist. She is a musician, filmmaker, photographer, actor and writer. Delawari graduated from USC School of Cinematic Arts. Her album Lion of Panjshir, released by David Lynch, has received international acclaim in such publications as The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, NPR Weekend Edition, LA Weekly, BMI World, Al Jazeera, SOMA, IFP, The Independent, and Marie Claire Italia.
Delawari has won awards for her photography of Afghanistan in both the International
Photography Awards and the Korean Times New York. Some of Delawari’s writing and lyrics were recently published in One Story Thirty Stories: An Anthology of Contemporary Afghan American Literature, which just won the silver medal in the Independent Publishing Awards for Best Anthology of 2012. In addition to We Came Home, Delawari has directed a video for her own song “Be Gone Taliban”.
Delawari is also an active humanitarian. She recently traveled to Uganda with The Voice Project to assist in documenting and recording the stories and songs of Refugee women calling home their abducted youth. She also teaches poetry and music workshops at Children of the Night, a Los Angeles based shelter for teens that are victims of prostitution.
Delawari is currently developing new film projects and just finished her second full-length album. Delawari was invited to create a presentation and performance piece for the inaugural TEDx event in Kabul.

About Yasmine Delawari Johnson (Producer)
Yasmine is an Afghan American actor and producer. She earned her Political Science degree at UCLA and went to New York's Circle in the Square Drama School. Yasmine is Ariana’s sister and has lived the story of this film, including their 2004 trip to Afghanistan. While at UCLA, Yasmine worked for the head of feature film publicity of Paramount Studios and following drama school, she worked with Broadway producer Anita Waxman on a number of Broadway productions including Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing, the Roundabout Theatre revival of Cabaret and New York Public Theater's The Wild Party. Yasmine is an active philanthropist and political activist; she is on the Board of The Alliance For Children's Rights, a Los Angeles based non-profit which advocates for the rights of children in LA's foster care system. She is also on the Board of Advisors of Foreign Policy Roundtable, an entertainment industry centric political salon. Yasmine was a contributing author to the Afghan American anthology, “One Story Thirty Stories: An Anthology of Contemporary Afghan American Literature”, which won a silver medal in the Independent Publishing awards for Best Anthology of 2012.

About Emily Lynch (Producer)
Emily’s involvement with this project began with her passion for Ariana Delawari's music. As she learned more about Ariana's family and her plans to record an album in Afghanistan, she immersed herself in the Delawari’s family history, traveling twice to Afghanistan. On both trips, she came armed with a camera and filmed everything from the country's incredible landscapes to interviews with the film's subjects. Emily is an active philanthropist, hosting monthly gatherings with women for various charities and working closely with the David Lynch Foundation and Children of the Night.

About Doc Miami
Doc Miami is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the best that documentary filmmaking has to offer worldwide. We seek to provide filmmakers a forum in which to promote their unique contributions to the evolution of the cultural arts within South Florida and within the entertainment industry as a whole. In addition Doc Miami hosts a documentary film festival to promote up and coming documentary filmmakers at a local, national and international level. We provide educational outreach programs for young filmmakers grades 6-12. In an effort to give back, Doc Miami has hosted benefit concerts to raise funds in order to build much needed schools in Tanzania.
Learn more about the Doc Miami International Film Festival by visiting:
www.docmiami.org
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