This year, the spots for the True/False Film Festival were some of the best I've ever seen. Cinematic and totally engaging, the bumpers that preceded each movie screening were so well done that I literally found myself looking forward to getting to watch them—all weekend long.

The festival found their star (and collaborator) for the project on YouTube. He's a local parkour runner named Nate Zabel, who founded the Columbia Freerunners. The spots were directed by Nathan Truesdell, and the music was composed by Jon Sheffield—both Columbia locals.

Congratulations to David Wilson, who produced these in association with local Columbia production company, Boxcar Films.

You can check out all four trailers here:

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

SUNDAY

South By Southwest kicks off this Friday and today, I'm scrambling to figure out how to fit so many films, panels, parties, friends (and sleep) into only 10 days!

As I look forward to diving into my 9th year attending SXSW, I've been reflecting on some of the wonderful friends I've made in years past—and this morning, thinking about filmmakers Kris Carr and Brian Fassett, I remembered that I had an unreleased interview I recorded last year during the SXSW premiere of Crazy Sexy Cancer. The movie was just released on DVD yesterday, so those of you who missed last year's TLC screenings will have a chance to see it.

Crazy Sexy Cancer documents Kris's personal journey after she was diagnosed with a rare and incurable form of cancer at age 31, and ultimately transcends the subject to provide an inspiring story of what it looks like to become an empowered participant in your own healing—whatever your challenges may be. In this podcast, I talk with Kris and Brian about filmmaking as a healing journey, and specifically how Kris made the decision to start filming herself three weeks after being diagnosed. Helping me co-host the interview is my friend, Gaea Logan, a psychotherapist, cancer survivor and author of the blog—Poetry, Courage, Cancer.

In the interview, we didn't get around to talking about Kris & Brian's outreach and marketing plans, however documentary filmmakers should check out the ingenuity Kris has brought to connecting with her audience and building community—She's published a book Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips; and has another book coming out in June; she blogs and has created a web-based community, as well as a Crazy Sexy Cancer Boot Camp, where young men and women living with cancer come for a long weekend to meet Kris and each other.

Press the blue arrow to start (or pause) the podcast.

This weekend, True/False Film Festival founders Paul Sturtz and David Wilson, along with the city of Columbia, Missouri, celebrated the 5th anniversary of—what many filmmakers who've been to True/False will tell you is their "favorite documentary festival in the world." It was also a celebration of the opening of the new expanded Rag Tag Cinema, Columbia's local film art house that Paul and David founded in 2000.

It's astonishing, not only to think about the challenges Paul and David faced in creating a regional non-fiction festival that would take place in a small mid-western town during the winter, but also to consider how quickly the festival has earned the respect and goodwill of the international documentary film community—as well as the people of Columbia, Missouri.

Throughout the weekend, the "greatness" of everyone's experience attending True/False (including my own) was a continuous topic of conversation. My friends and I bandied about our theories how True/False came to be so amazing. Was it the festival's Telluride-inspired roots, the integrity and warmth of David and Paul, the closeness of the venues, the intelligence and enthusiasm of Columbia's residents (particularly the 500 devoted volunteers—1 out of every 200 residents!), the quality of the films, or the participation of filmmakers? All that is true—but I believe at the heart of the magic lies Paul and David's clear intention to focus on creating what Paul describes as "an ecstatic communal experience." The cheering, extended, rock-star standing ovation for David and Paul—as they walked onto the stage of the 1,750-seat Jesse Hall Auditorium for Sunday night's closing film—was a testament to their success at doing exactly that.

In this podcast interview, I ask Paul and David about their new initiative—soon to be launched—(with support from the Sundance Institute) to expand the magic of the True/False experience across the country and throughout the year—building a touring network of art cinemas where world filmmakers can personally present their films. I also ask them to give us a look behind the curtain in how they work together to choose the films for their festival, and share some personal high points, looking back on the last five years.

I'll have more about my weekend at True/False online soon, along with links to coverage from the online media—who this weekend likely gave Columbia, MO the world record for film bloggers per capita.

Press the blue arrow to start (or pause) the podcast.

AMERICAN DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION

Documentary Grand Jury Prize
Trouble The Water
Directed by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal

Documentary Audience Award
Fields of Fuel
Directed by Josh Tickell

Documentary Directing Award
Nanette Burstein
American Teen

Excellence in Documentary Cinematography
Phillip Hunt and Steven Sebring
Patti Smith: Dream of Life

Documentary Editing Award
Joe Bini
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

Documentary Special Jury Prize
The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo
Directed by Lisa F. Jackson

American Documentary Competition Jury: Michelle Byrd, Heidi Ewing, Eugene Jarecki, Steven Okazaki and Annie Sundberg

WORLD CINEMA DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION

World Cinema Documentary Jury Prize
Man on Wire (UK)
Directed by James Marsh

World Cinema Documentary Audience Award
Man on Wire (UK)
Directed by James Marsh

World Cinema Documentary Directing Award
Nino Kirtadze
Durakovo: Village of Fools (France)

World Cinema Documentary Cinematography Award
Mahmoud al Massad
Recycle (Jordan)

World Cinema Documentary Editing Award
Irena Dol
The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins (New Zealand)

World Documentary Competition Jury: Amir Bar-Lev (US), Leena Pasanen (Finland/Denmark) and Ilda Santiago (Brazil)

SHORT FILMMAKING AWARDS — AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARIES

Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking
My Olympic Summer
Directed by Daniel Robin
(tied with Dramatic Short — Sikumi, Directed by Andrew Okpeaha MacLean)

Honorable Mention
La Corona (The Crown)
Directed by Amanda Micheli and Isabel Vega

American and International Shorts Jury: Jon Bloom, Melonie Diaz and Jason Reitman

It's Not A Party

I kicked off the opening night of Sundance in a cozy condo, eating hot veggie chili and seeing many of the friends I met for the first time a year ago at Sundance. It was a small gathering which the invitation insisted was "Not a Party." (The hosts' strategy—to avoid a queue of people outside the condo—worked, and the condo stayed congenially at capacity with no one left outside in the snow.)

It's Not GPS

To find my way there, I tried out the new Apple iPhone location detection feature released this week. It's a free software upgrade that uses triangulation data from nearby cell phone towers and Wi-Fi networks. So, I pulled up my iPhone's not-a-gps button and asked for directions to the not-a-party. To its credit, my iPhone did manage to find me in the Park City vicinity, but it refused to give me directions until I typed in the address of my origin. To be fair, the new feature has worked well back in Austin, where it has located me within a few blocks and has made getting driving directions a breeze.

It's Not a Pair of Jeans

To complete the trifecta, I decided to sport my new pair of Double Happiness "designer jeans" which I had purchased a few hours before at the New Frontier on Main's virtual sweatshop exhibit called "Invisible Threads," and I which I watched being manufactured on thick cotton paper run through a large HP printer.

This unique New Frontier on Main installation is described as a playful replication of real-world economies that scrutinizes the relationship between real dollars and virtual assets. Unlike some jean manufacturers, Double Happiness doesn't hide the fact they pay their Second Life workers about 90 cents an hour.

(If you aren't already familiar with Second Life—it's an online 3D virtual world with over half a million active users.)

Virtual sweat shop worker Kristy McBride personally processed my order. "Kristy McBride" is an online avatar representing an actual human being who is sitting behind a computer somewhere on the planet, and who has voluntarily decided to spend time working at the Double Happiness Manufacturing sweat shop. I'm not sure why anyone would choose to spend their free time in Second life working in a sweat shop—but then again I don't totally understand why people would choose to spend their free time in Second Life. But I suspect the freedom to come to work dressed in a mini-skirt and bikini-top could be part of the equation.

Jeff Crouse (an Eyebeam fellow, who along with artist Stephanie Rothenberg) created the Second Life virtual sweat shop installation, is also the virtual boss who manages the workers. His avatar—known to his workers as "Supreme Hoo Doo"—wears a giant top hat and announces each order over a loud-speaker. Since New Frontier on Main is all about pushing the boundaries of technology and art, I asked Jeff if he could customize my new jeans with some designs on the leg. Without missing a beat, he said sure, and offered me a Sharpie marker.

You can read more about Invisible Threads in an article from the Pueblo Chieftain.

Also hanging out at the sweatshop-cum-art installation—getting ready to buy his own pair of jeans—was DJ Spooky, recently returned from Antarctica and here in Park City to present his new work, Terra Nova: The Antarctica Suite, and answer questions on Tuesday night, January 22 at 9 p.m. at New Frontier on Main (333 Main Street, Downstairs, Park City, UT). Check out the enticing video preview here. It's described as a live performance that acoustically portrays the transformation of Antarctica using Miller's own field recordings and visuals from Getty Images. The performance is open to the general public and is free. So plan to arrive early!

HASAN ELAHI'S "TRACKING TRANSIENCE" INSTALLATION AT NEW FRONTIER ON MAIN

I'm excited to be back at Sundance this year, both for the chance to see this year's new crop of films—and for the chance to reconnect with so many filmmaking friends from near and far.

I'm particularly happy to be celebrating with friends who have projects premiering this week: PJ Raval (DP, Trouble The Water), Mary Manhardt (editor, American Teen) Margaret Brown, (director, The Order of Myths) and Karen Schmeer (editor, American Son).

The past two nights in Park City have been cold. Like -5 F-before-wind-chill-cold. But the combination of the dryness and the adrenaline of Sundance somehow make it manageable. I emailed a friend to ask, "At what temperature will my eyeballs freeze?" and she wrote back to reassure me that watching too many films was likely the greater risk. Thankfully, I've only got a couple screenings a day and nothing before midday.

I'll be doing audio interviews again this year—and releasing them during and after the festival.

In the meantime…

Meet the Directors of the 2008 Sundance Documentary Competition Films

Indiewire continues their tradition this year of interviewing directors before Sundance via email, and will be posting new interviews throughout the festival. Meanwhile, the Sundance Institute has been busy filming and editing video interviews with many of the doc directors.

Last year, I spent the entire month leading up to the festival interviewing directors and editing my Countdown to Sundance podcast series, so I can really appreciate how much work it is just to coordinate the interviews, while filmmakers are staying up all night in editing rooms getting their film completed.

Links to available interviews follow each title:

An American Soldier
Director Edet Belzberg
not available

American Teen
Director Nanette Burstein
Sundance Video

Bigger, Faster, Stronger
Director Christopher Bell
Indiewire | Sundance Video

Fields of Fuel
Director Josh Tickell
not available

Flow: For Love of Water
Director Irena Salina
Sundance Video

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson
Director Alex Gibney
Sundance Video

The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo
Director Lisa F. Jackson
Sundance Video

I.O.U.S.A.
Director Patrick Creadon
Sundance Video

Nerakhoon (The Betrayal)
Director Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath
Indiewire | Sundance Video

The Order of Myths
Director Margaret Brown
Sundance Video

Patti Smith: Dream of Life
Director Steven Sebring
Indiewire | Sundance Video

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
Director Marina Zenovich
L.A. Times Profile

Secrecy
Co-Director Peter Galison
Indiewire

Slingshot Hip Hop
Director Jackie Reem Salloum
not available

Traces of the Trade
Director Katrina Browne
Indiewire

Trouble the Water
Co-directors Tia Lessin and Carl Deal
Indiewire

When I launched Docs That Inspire last December, P.O.V.'s Executive Director Simon Kilmurry was one of the first to send me an email with words of encouragement. I'm grateful to Simon for the significant impact he had on my decision to develop this website.

I'm also grateful to the past and current staff of P.O.V. who have developed an extraordinary home for documentaries on American television—and who nurture and support so many filmmakers in the process. When people ask about what I mean when I say that I love empathic stories which help dispel enemy images of those who are different, I can point to P.O.V. for dozens of examples of stories which humanize instead of polarize.

Tonight in New York, American Documentary/P.O.V. will be honored by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards with a special Emmy celebrating P.O.V.'s two decades of extraordinary programming and community engagement. P.O.V.'s new Emmy will join a collection that already includes three Academy Awards, 18 Emmys, 11 George Foster Peabody Awards, eight Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Broadcast Journalism Awards, 36 Cine Golden Eagles, the Prix Italia—not to mention a Webby Award.

In this podcast interview, Simon shares his thoughts about the role of empathy in documentaries, the trend of longer running times in non-fiction films—along with some ideas about the differences between successful shorts, one-hour and feature length stories. We also talk about licensing fees, budgets and the unique passion of documentary filmmakers.

Press the blue arrow to start (or pause) the podcast.

Back from my summer hiatus, I'm kicking off my fall festival coverage from the IFP Filmmaker Conference in New York City.

At festivals I often find myself missing panels in order to finish the spontaneous hallway conversations which inevitably spark up while I'm on my way into the room. But when I heard that journalist Scott Kirsner would be moderating Wednesday's panel on Digital Downloads, I dodged eye contact and made a b-line for Puck Building Ballroom.

Kirsner is arguably the most engaging panel moderator on the new media scene, both because of his knowledge of emerging distribution platforms and the persistence he brings to asking panelists tough questions and keeping things moving along. Panels such as this one are a vital service to filmmakers, who are faced with an overwhelming array of online distribution possibilities in new media landscape that's evolving at warp speed.

This podcast is a complete unedited one-hour audio recording of the panel discussion featuring Peter Broderick (Distribution Strategist at Paradigm Consulting), Kathleen Powell (Vice President, Worldwide Programming, Jaman), Jana Augsberger (Filmaka.com), and Kelly Devine (Manager, ReFrame Project). You can read more about this panel—along with Kirsner's commentary on several other IFP panels—at his blog: CinemaTech.

Special thanks to Scott Kirsner, the panelists, and Michelle Byrd / IFP for allowing Docs That Inspire to record the panel and share it online.

Click the blue arrow to start (or pause) the podcast.

Last night, Billy The Kid won the Best Documentary Feature Award at Film Independent's 2007 LA Film Festival, and with the jury recognition came a cash prize of $50,000. I'm happy to see Jennifer Venditti, the director of this fresh and empathic documentary celebrated—and funded!

I fell for the film when I saw it premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival (where it also won the top jury prize). And I made a point of getting to know Jennifer in Toronto when we were both at Hot Docs.

The L.A. Film Festival jury (Patrick Creadon, Rob Epstein, and Lisa Schwarzbaum) wrote, "Inspired by her extraordinarily guileless young subject and matching his unique adolescent openness with her own artistic integrity in her auspicious filmmaking debut, Venditti finds a graceful documentary voice – patient, respectful, even tender – that perfectly matches the delicate turmoil observed in the life of one disarmingly articulate 15-year-old young man with, as he says, ‘issues.’”

In this podcast interview, Jennifer shares the story of how the film was born and what inspired her to make it. Helping co-host the interview is Gaea Logan—a Docs That Inspire contributor and a psychotherapist. Gaea asks Jennifer about her decision to remove the end title card which had been shown at the SXSW screenings—a card that revealed that the adolescent protagonist of the film was later diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome.

Click the blue arrow to start (or pause) the podcast.

Play Podcast Video

Enemies of Happiness premiered at IDFA last November, where it won the Silver Wolf Award. The film went on to win the Grand Jury Prize for World Documentary at Sundance in January.

I never imagined that six months later I'd be sitting across from the inspiring subject of the film, a 28-year-old woman named Malalai Joya, whose moral courage and strength I deeply admire. Malalai entered the world stage in 2003 when she bravely spoke out against warlords, guilty of crimes against women and democracy in her country—Afghanistan. Enemies of Happiness documents the journey leading up to her landslide victory to the newly-formed democratic parliament in 2005.

Malalai is devoted to championing women's rights and democracy in her country, and she continues her activism in the face of continuing assassination attempts and threats. In this vidcast, you'll see an excerpt from Enemies of Happiness which was filmed just before Malalai was elected. In our short interview that follows, Malalai shares her thoughts about her role as an outspoken leader, and her hope for the women of Afghanistan.

Less than a month ago, Malalai was ousted from the parliament for making critical remarks on television that the parliament wasn't doing enough for the Afghan people. Article 70 of the Afghan parliament's rules of procedure prohibit lawmakers from criticizing one another, a law that she says was created to silence her.

She is currently touring with Enemies of Happiness and raising funds for her human rights work and security needs. You can support her efforts at the Defense Committee for Malalai Joya.

(Also check out online: my interview with film director Eva Mulvad, PBS Now Interview and film clips, Enemies of Happiness Website, Women Make Movies)

I'm excited to be here in Silver Spring, Maryland at the 2007 SilverDocs Film Festival, which continues its proud tradition of celebrating the many ways that documentary films make a difference.

I'm kicking off my coverage with a podcast interview with director Cynthia Wade, who's latest doc Freeheld will screen as part of Shorts Program 3 on Friday afternoon and Sunday night. (The film premiered at Sundance earlier this year and won a special jury award for short filmmaking.)

Freeheld tells the story of a 25-year veteran of the Ocean County, New Jersey police department, Lieutenant Laurel Hester, who after being diagnosed with terminal cancer attempted to transfer her police pension to her domestic partner, Stacie Andree. The film begins as the Ocean County Freeholders—the local elected officials—deny her request.

I was moved witnessing the extraordinary community of non-activists who rally to support Hester's fight for social justice, and in the process illuminate how powerful each of us can be in affecting social change, even if we don't think of ourselves as "activists."

In this podcast, I ask Cynthia how she became involved in the story, and what surprised her the most about what unfolded before her eyes.

FREEHELD SilverDocs 2007 Screenings

Friday 6/15 12:00 pm AFI Theater 1 (Shorts Program 3)
Sunday 6/17 7:00 pm AFI Theater 3 (Shorts Program 3)

Click the blue arrow to start (or pause) the podcast.

I first saw 9 Star Hotel in Amsterdam at IDFA last November, and was astonished to share such rare and raw intimacy with a group of Palestinian teenagers who have been hiding in the forest outside the Israeli town of Modi'in. Under the constant threat of arrest, the young men work illegally as construction workers building luxury condos by day, and live together as a family by night.

9 Star Hotel had its U.S. premiere at the TriBeCa Film Festival last month, and is currently finishing up a two-week theatrical run at New York's Film Forum (New Yorkers have only today and tomorrow to catch it). While Jeannette Catsoulis (New York Times) dismissed the film's lack of analysis as "unenlightening," I believe Ido's choice to tell a humanist story without attempting to analyze such a highly-politicized situation, is the film's strength, and gives audiences the opportunity to consider the universal themes that transcend the Arab-Israeli conflict. In this podcast, Ido shares how he developed trust with the young subjects, and how he approached shooting and editing a film in a language he didn't speak.

9 Star Hotel will continue to travel the film festival circuit this year prior to its U.S. television debut in 2008 on P.O.V.

(Also check out online: The Trailer, Variety, The Nation, Jewish Week, Film Journal)

Click the blue arrow to start (or pause) the podcast.

This year HotDocs has stepped up their embrace of new media and knowledge-sharing by recording almost their entire industry conference and posting the sessions online as free audio and video podcasts. (Note: the morning coffee talks, micro-meetings and the TDF are not scheduled to be recorded.)

The series is produced in cooperation with The Centre for Creative Communications at Centennial College in Toronto. And the links to this year's coverage are here: HotDocs Talks, Industry Sessions, National Film Board DocSummit, Kickstart Sessions, DocAgora, index of audio podcasts, index of video podcasts. I'm impressed with the turnaround so far: sessions from the past two days are already online. And while you're waiting for the rest of the conference to go live, check out the selections from HotDocs 2006: audio and video.

In March 2006, South By Southwest was one of the first media conferences to begin to share a comprehensive archive of their conference programming at no charge. It was a groundbreaking contribution to the industry and I hope that the generosity of conferences such as SxSW and HotDocs will continue to inspire other festivals to share their resources with the media community at large. If you haven't already, check out the delicious selection of SxSW audio available here: 2007 Podcast Archive and 2006 Podcast Archive.

If you're attending HotDocs, I encourage you to share your photographs of the festival at the HotDocs Flickr Photo Group. It's a useful way to connect with other new media saavy attendees, while helping to document the festival for those who aren't here.

After signing on to your Flickr account (personal accounts are available for free), you can join the HotDocs group by clicking on the link in the lower left corner of the HotDocs group page. It's easy to add photos to the HotDocs pool by clicking the "send to group" icon which appear above each photo you upload to your Flickr account—or use the "organize" tab to send multiple photos to the group. Flickr gives you the option of assigning a copyright or creative commons notice for each photo to indicate the rights you wish to retain.

You can view my photos along with contributor Gaea Logan's photos at the Docs That Inspire Flickr page.

Docs That Inspire Podcast Interviews

Tune in and meet the filmmakers of 8 documentaries screening at HotDocs 2007: Protagonist, Enemies of Happiness, Hear and Now, Everything's Cool, War/Dance, King Corn, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, and Nanking.

Other online HotDocs coverage to check out: HotDocs Daily (use the pull-down menu on the upper right to navigate the headline categories), James McNally's Toronto Screen Shots, Now Toronto's Hot Docs Coverage, Moviepie Musings. Doc Blogger Agnes Varnum is attending HotDocs, and Agnes and I will be recording some podcast interviews together this week.

I’m in Toronto, Canada for the next week—attending my first Hot Docs—the largest documentary film festival and market in North America.

I'm kicking off my HotDocs coverage with this podcast interview with Aaron Woolf, the director King Corn—which is having its first showing outside of The United States in just a few hours. I spoke with Aaron just before King Corn had its sold-out South by Southwest world premiere in March.

King Corn is one of the handful of documentaries I've seen this year that embody so many of the qualities that I look for in social issue docs: humor, playfulness, curiosity, and the skillfulness to make accessible the complexities of political, economic and environmental ecosystems.

I also admire Aaron's fairness in telling a story that could have easily devolved into a polemic of blame. The film is a powerful illumination of not only the ubiquitous role corn plays in the life of every American, but also connects the dots to show how agricultural policies have unintentionally led to the sudden rise in obesity, and the alarming degradation of the American food supply.

Joining us for the podcast is one of the characters featured in King Corn, Aaron's cousin Curt Ellis. And helping me co-host is Sarah Jo Marks, a fellow blogger (documentaryinsider.com), and a documentary sales rep. Besides our love of docs, Sarah Jo and I also share a passion for food, and a deep concern for the issues raised in King Corn.

In this podcast, Aaron and Curt talk about the premise of the film and what they hope audiences will take away. Aaron also shares his concerns about how documentaries such as Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 and Borat have impacted documentary makers' ability to secure interviews on tape, especially when tackling controversial subjects.

King Corn HotDocs 2007 Screenings

4/21 9:45 pm The ROM Theatre
4/23 11:45 pm The Bloor Cinema

(Also checkout: King Corn website, trailer, Christian Science Monitor interview with Michael Pollen, article from The New Farm)

Click the blue arrow to start (or pause) the podcast.

The Prisoner Or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair opens today in Austin, Cambridge, Chicago and San Francisco. The film debuted in New York and Washington D.C. last weekend and will open in Los Angeles on April 6.

I recorded this interview with co-directors Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein earlier this month at South by Southwest, where the theatrical version of the film had its world premiere. I first saw a previous cut of The Prisoner at the IDFA Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam and was moved by this compelling and humanizing story of an Iraqi journalist, Yunis Khatayer Abbas, who was mistakenly arrested and detained in Abu Ghraib for 8 months, when faulty army intel identified him and his brothers as building bombs to kill Tony Blair. The film brings to life Yunis's experience, from his arrest (which the filmmakers captured on tape while they were shooting Gunner Palace) to his imprisonment at Abu Ghraib, to his eventual release, which included a brief apology from the Army.

The filmmakers have expanded their original film to 72 minutes, and given it a theatrical polish. There are more of Petra Epperlein's gorgeous abstract comic book style illustrations, which serve as a masterful example of how documentary filmmakers can create visuals for footage they don't have, without resorting to recreations.

What's most remarkable about seeing Yunis's story is the way that it allows us to connect with this Iraqi man and his family on a human level—and through our connection to him, feel a deeper connection to the 27 million Iraqi civilians who continue to live with war and its human costs. While what happened to Yunis is horrifying, the story remains grounded in hope, inspired by the dignity and humanity of Yunis and his supervising guard, Benjamin Thompson, who as a member of the 391st MP Battalion, Army Reserve in Columbus, OH, was sent in Feb 2004 to Abu Ghraib.

Benjamin wrote to the filmmakers after seeing Gunner Palace and recognizing Yunis in the arrest footage. Michael Tucker wrote a moving Vanity Fair article which describes how Benjamin contacted them and became involved in the film.

In this podcast, Benjamin joins Michael and Petra to share his first-hand experiences at Abu Ghraib. Benjamin says, "I think that the photographs involved in that scandal really ended up being a smokescreen that could hide the real troubles at Abu Ghraib. As long as we didn't do those things again, as long as those pictures didn't come out again, everything at Abu Ghraib was just fine as far as the world was concerned, even though the entire time I was there, things were not fine. We were, as far as I'm concerned, violating international law—but that's not talked about."

(Also recommended: Variety's film review by Joe Leydon, Time Magazine Article "An Iraqi Kafka" by Richard Schickel, and the film's Quicktime Trailer and website.)

Click the blue arrow to start (or pause) the podcast.