Tag Archives: Iraq

NEWLY FUNDED: ITVS is Pleased to Announce Funding for Jehan S. Harney’s The Lost Dream

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ITVS recently approved funding for the documentary The Lost Dream by filmmakers Jehan S. Harney (Director/Producer) and Laura Poitras (Executive Producer).

The Lost Dream examines the lives of two Iraqis who supported the U.S. mission in their own country and came to America, only to find themselves strangers in a strange land. Nazar and Salam both helped the coalition forces in Operation Iraqi Freedom and were forced to flee their homes. As they begin new lives in the United States, they are left to wonder if their sacrifice was worth the costs.

The Lost Dream reflects a rarely seen Iraqi refugee community in the U.S., a population still paying the price for a war that was supposed to liberate them.

Join ITVS in congratulating the filmmakers and watch an interview with filmmaker Jehan Harney after the jump.

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American Warriors Up Close in This is Where We Take Our Stand

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Currently airing on public television nationwide, This Is Where We Take Our Stand documents an unprecedented 2008 conference of veterans and active-duty soldiers called Winter Solider. Inspired by the 1971 conference of the same name, the four days of heartbreaking testimony revealed why many veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars concluded that their mission was unjust. ITVS’s Kate Sullivan Green spoke with Director/Producers David Zeiger and Bestor Cram about the film and its relevancy today.

This is Where We Take Our Stand is currently airing on public television

Your film takes place around the Winter Solider event in March of 2008. What drew you to this subject?

DAVID ZEIGER: I made a film in 2005 called Sir! No Sir! that told the story of the G.I. movement against the war in Vietnam. This was a story that had been deeply suppressed in history and in the American psyche and had been replaced with a whole mythology that said that during the Vietnam War, the anti-war movement had targeted soldiers and basically was a movement against the people who fought the war. This was of course symbolized most visibly by the myth of solders being spat on when they returned.
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An Encore Presentation of Lioness, Thursday on IL

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The documentary, by filmmakers Meg McLagan and Daria Sommers, takes an intimate look at war through the eyes of women on the front lines and the U.S. military policy that bans them from combat. Lioness will air Thursday as part of an encore presentation on Independent Lens.

How did five female Army support soldiers — mechanics, supply clerks and engineers — end up fighting alongside the Marines in some of the bloodiest counterinsurgency battles of the Iraq War? Directors Meg McLagan and Daria Sommers give an intimate look at war through the eyes of the first women in U.S. history sent into direct ground combat, despite a policy that bans them from doing so.

Through harrowing personal stories, these women candidly share their experiences in Iraq as well as from their lives back home to form a portrait of the emotional and psychological effects of war. Watch the trailer for Lioness after the jump.
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Revisiting The Oath and Gitmo, 10 Years After 9/11

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In recognition of the 10th Anniversary of 9/11, ITVS and PBS NewsHour will be hosting a live chat with The Oath filmmaker Laura Poitras and others.

The Oath, which is streaming free on ITVS Indies Showcase from September 11-13, follows the story of Abu Jandal, Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard, and Salim Hamdan, a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay Prison and the first man to face the controversial military tribunals.

Moderated by NewsHour’s Hari Sreenivasan, Monday’s live chat will feature a panel of experts including:

• Abdul-Ghani Aliryani
Political Analyst and Co-founder of the Democratic Awakening Movement
Abdul-Ghani Aliryani is a Yemeni political researcher and analyst, who played an advisory role to filmmaker Laura Poitras in the making of The Oath. He is based in Sana’a, Yemen.

• Lt. Cmdr. Brian L. Mizer
Assistant Federal Public Defender in the Eastern District of Virginia
Lt. Cmdr. Brian L. Mizer served as Salim Hamdan’s lawyer at Guantanamo and is featured throughout the documentary The Oath.

• Laura Poitras
Filmmaker, The Oath
Academy-Award nominated filmmaker Laura Poitras has directed several acclaimed documentaries including Flag Wars (2003) and My Country, My County (2006). Her film The Oath is part of a trilogy of films about America post 9/11 and earned top honors for cinematography at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

• Andrea Prasow
Senior Counterterrorism Counsel, Human Rights Watch
Prior to joining Human Rights Watch, Andrea was a defense attorney with the Office of Military Commissions. She served as assistant counsel for Salim Hamdan alongside Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer.

Join us for the event on BTB on Monday, September 12 at 11AM PT / 2PM ET.



Revisiting Iraqi Politics on Global Voices

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My Country, My Country airs on Global Voices this Sunday

Coming this Sunday to Global Voices on PBS WORLD is the 2007 Academy Award nominated film My Country, MY Country. The documentary tells the behind-the-scenes story of the January 2005 national elections in Iraq from the perspective of the people who planned, participated in and boycotted them.

Directed by Laura Poitras, the film offers a sobering look at Iraq two years after the U.S.-led invasion and is a testament to the courage of people willing to put their lives on the line for the promise of democracy.

Check out the trailer below and make sure to watch My Country, My Country this Sunday on Global Voices (check local listings).

Subjects From The Way We Get By Make History By Greeting Over One Million Troops

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They’ve become famous among the soldiers who have passed through the airport in Bangor, Maine, on their way to and from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Among their neighbors, they’ve become a source of pride. To a nation wrestling with the politics behind the wars, they’re an inspiration. They are the “Troop Greeters” of Bangor, an intrepid group of retired and elderly citizens who have taken it upon themselves to greet every troop plane arriving or departing Bangor, which is the last and first piece of U.S. soil many GIs will see before and after their deployments.

On Sunday, March 21, 2010 around midnight, the Maine Troop Greeters made history by greeting over one million troops at the Bangor International Airport. Joan Gaudet, one of the greeters and a subject in the ITVS funded, award-winning film, The Way We Get By, agreed to write about this extraordinary achievement.

Jerry Mundy (left) and Joan Gaudet (center) saying farewell to the millionth soldier. Photo: Shane Leonard

I am proud to be a Maine Troop Greeter. It makes me feel like I’m doing my little part through all of this. It’s a good feeling when you go to greet the troops and feel like you made their day a little brighter. They call us heroes sometimes but we know we aren’t heroes, they are. Some of these guys have gone through three, four, five, six times. And when they say we remember you, I think it means we must have done something right.

It was hard to believe that a million troops have gone through our airport already. To me, I knew it was a lot but it didn’t seem like it should have been a million. A lot of people say what an incredible accomplishment—how long we’ve been doing it—it will be over 7 years now. But to me, in all honesty, it’s kind of sad. I am happy that we’ve been able to greet that many but sad in another way, because it means we’re sending a lot of them to war to maybe never come back. So it’s kind of a happy and sad thing. It’s fun to greet them seeing their smiles and hearing their laughter but at the same time, when I see how many troops keep coming through, I can’t help but wonder how many we greeted actually came back.

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KLRU-Austin LINCS Partnership: TATTOOED UNDER FIRE

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Linking Independents and Co-Producing Stations (LINCS) provides matching funds (up to $100,000) to partnerships between public television stations and independent producers. To apply for LINCS funds, independents must first approach a public television station and establish a partnership.

Learn more about a recent LINCS partnership with KLRU-Austin and the film TATTOOED UNDER FIRE, which looks at a tattoo parlor in Killeen, Texas where war-bound and returning soldiers go under the needle and confess their deepest secrets and fears. Maria Rodriguez, senior vice president of programming at KLRU-Austin, shares her thoughts about the film, which airs in November on public television.

I am deeply saddened by the events at Fort Hood this past week. My thoughts and prayers go out to the soldiers and their families at this time.

When I first watched clips of TATTOOED UNDER FIRE by Nancy Schiesari, I saw an outline of a unique story that needed to be brought to public television. I saw young men and women just out of high school who were preparing to go to war in Iraq as they as visited a local tattoo parlor near their base. There they revealed their American pride, their concerns and fears about going over to fight. Then the film provides more revelations upon their return from Iraq. Each soldier gives their own personal perspective giving us the sense of the human and cultural cost of war. It gives a perspective and an experience that very few of us will ever experience in our lifetime.

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Filmmakers Sean Flynn and Beth Murphy Discuss THE PROMISE OF FREEDOM

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ITVS funds, distributes and promotes new programs produced by independent producers primarily for public television and beyond.

Check out the clip below with co-producer Sean Flynn and director/producer Beth Murphy, who received Open Call funds for their film THE PROMISE OF FREEDOM, which looks at the story of Kirk Johnson, a 26-year-old American aid worker, fighting to save thousands of Iraqis whose lives are in danger because they worked for the United States to help rebuild Iraq. Learn more about their film and hear what they have to say about working in indie film–a field that seems glamorous on the surface, but can be grueling work.

Find more information about Open Call funding >>

Watch EN ROUTE TO BAGHDAD on Global Voices on PBS WORLD

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Prior to his death in a Baghdad bombing attack in 2003, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello devoted his life to global humanitarian efforts in countries such as Mozambique, Cambodia and East Timor. EN ROUTE TO BAGHDAD is a portrait of Vieira de Mello and his extraordinary career and a tragic metaphor for the effort to bring stability to Iraq.

Watch a preview below:

EN ROUTE TO BAGHDAD airs Sunday, August 23 at 10:00 PM on Global Voices on PBS WORLD (check local listings).

Filmmakers Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly at SXSW

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PBS Engage hosted a “Social Media & Online Video Studio” at the recent South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive & Film conference in Austin, Texas.

Filmmakers Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly discussed their film THE WAY WE GET BY, which was recently funded by ITVS through the LINCS funding initiative and will air this year on P.O.V. on PBS.

Since March 2003, almost 700,000 soldiers and marines from across the country have been greeted at the Bangor International Airport. THE WAY WE GET BY follows a group of senior citizens who are making history by using handshakes and hugs to play a critical role in the Iraq war.

Check out the video and learn more about their film:

Visit the P.O.V. Web site to find out more information >>