Broomfield’s new feature film “Ghosts” re-enacts the events leading up to a 2004 British seashore tragedy (at Morecambe bay) in which a group of Chinese cockle-pickers were killed by the fast-moving tide. Broomfield seems to have stayed true to his documentary tradition as much as he could, by employing non-professional actors, and using hand-held cameras and true-life locations. (He did not write himself into the script though.)
Continue reading ‘Nick Broomfield feature screens at London Film Festival’
As the US looks for an exit strategy, FRONTLINE examines the initial, critical decisions of the US-led regime in Baghdad.
From the same team that produced Rumsfeld’s War, The Torture Question and The Dark Side, the film is based on more than 30 interviews, most of them with the officials charged with building a “new and democratic” Iraq.
The Lost Year in Iraq begins on April 9, 2003, as American troops help a crowd of Iraqis topple a statue of Saddam Hussein. In Washington there was celebration, but in Baghdad the looting was beginning. Jay Garner, the retired general picked by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to lead reconstruction, was forced to wait in Kuwait for authorization to enter Iraq. He and his team had arrived from Washington without computers, telephones or a plan.
“Everybody was focused on the war; they were focused on regime change,” Garner tells FRONTLINE. “That took all of their energy. I wasn’t the central focus.” On the day Garner finally arrived in Baghdad, he received a phone call from Rumsfeld: He was being replaced by L. Paul Bremer.
Continue reading ‘Online documentary: The Lost Year in Iraq’
