About Us

In the 1930s, as the United States was in the grip of the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt initiated the largest cultural experiment in the nation’s history:  The Federal Writers’ Project.  Funded under the New Deal, the Writer’s Project employed writers in every state to chronicle what America meant to them.  The intention:  To revitalize a sense of patriotism and pride in the United States during a period when American spirits were broken.  It was called “The America Project.”  

With the creation of Lapis Media in Arlington, Virginia, we intend to capture the essence of this endeavor by producing engaging documentaries, videos and multimedia web sites that reintroduce diasporas of war-torn nations to the richness of their respective cultures.  It is our goal to rekindle a sense of national spirit among uprooted populations through engaging storytelling.

Lapis believes that these groups of people (e.g., Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians, Palestinians, Somalis, Rohingyan, etc.) have been bombarded by the negative realities of their countries for so long that they are, culturally, in a state of great depression.  We think that a culture absent of a healthy self-image will eventually wither away or become a burden upon the world.  

Through our endeavors, we hope to play a part in reconnecting these people to their homelands and, thereby, to inspire them to engage in reconstruction and peace-building efforts.  In addition, we believe that our productions will also enlighten American audiences about the uncovered or underreported histories of nations that have for so long been associated solely with chaos and misery.