Jeremy Scahill's film "Dirty Wars," is opening in Los Angeles on Friday, June 7, and many other cities nationwide.
Dirty Wars follows investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill, author of the international bestseller Blackwater, into the heart of America’s covert wars, from Afghanistan to Yemen, Somalia and beyond.
The film won the Cinematography Prize at the Sundance Film Festival this year. Variety says it is "astonishingly hard-hitting" and adds: "This jaw-dropping, persuasively researched pic has the power to pry open government lockboxes."
From the LA Times:
"Though the film tackles complex matters of national security policy, its approach is decidedly personal. In a series of gripping and sobering scenes, Scahill and Rowley bring us face to face with the family of an Afghan police commander whose home in the city of Gardez was erroneously attacked with lethal force by Americans; with Nasser al-Awlaki, an academic and former Fulbright scholar whose American-born son, a radical imam, and 16-year-old grandson were killed in U.S. drone strikes in Yemen; with Somali warlords who have become Washington's proxies in the murky fight against Al Qaeda in Africa.
Scahill goes a step beyond that, foregoing the standard role of detached journalist guide. Instead, he narrates "Dirty Wars" in first person, revealing himself as a character wrung out by his own journey in a moral no man's land. Acknowledging what many war correspondents feel but rarely include in their dispatches, he shares an inner monologue of doubts and dilemmas, both as a reporter and simply as an American.
"When I first visited Gardez, I had no idea where the story would lead," he says in a voice-over. "I didn't know just how much the world had changed, or how much the journey would change me."'
Jeremy is an amazing investigative reporter, and I can't wait to see his first documentary. Hopefully it will be the first of many.
