Village Talks
Fleeing the Taliban.
The untold story of a Woodside filmmaker.
David Cowan has spent decades in Silicon Valley helping shape the future—and along the way, found himself drawn to a different kind of building: filmmaking. In this Village Talks conversation, he shares his journey from venture capital and entrepreneurship to producing Afghan Dreamers, the MTV Documentary feature film—now streaming on Paramount+—that follows an all-girls Afghan robotics team competing on the world stage amid escalating danger.
David reflects on why this story mattered to him, how it came together under extraordinary pressure, and the broader questions it raises about impact and storytelling. He also shares how his involvement led him to help evacuate hundreds of Afghans—an experience marked by harrowing, real-time decisions—and offers a behind-the-scenes look at filmmaking as a force for change.
