I watch a lot of documentaries.
Last year, I began recommending some of my favourites here on my blog, and it’s time I got back in the habit.
Each week, I’ll be sharing one of my all-time favourite documentaries with you. This week’s documentary is Laura Poitras’ My Country, My Country.
Documentaries help us understand the world in which we live, a world which was radically redefined by a single day in living memory: 11th September, 2001.
Laura Poitras has released a trilogy of excellent films exploring the landscape of this strange new world we share.
In the first film – My Country, My Country – Poitras examines post-invasion Iraq, and asks: What does it really mean to bring democracy to the Middle East?
Two years after the Allied invasion, Iraq is still reeling from the shock of war. It is a nation unstable, divided, occupied.
George W. Bush is demanding that the nation’s first democratic elections go ahead – but does he understand what that will involve?
Amid intense international pressure and domestic chaos, should the people of Iraq be pushed into premature elections, or try to stop them?
All too often, we see the violence that tears countries apart. Here, Poitras shows us a country struggling against the odds to pull itself together, and to redefine itself.
In a film that was nominated for an Academy Award – and landed Poitras on the US Department of Homeland Security’s watchlist – she gives us a moving and very human portrait of an Iraq we rarely see.
(Can’t see the trailer? Click here).
I’ve now partnered with the Documentary Australia Foundation, making it possible for Australians to make tax-deductible contributions here on their website.
I’m currently seeking similar partnerships in North America and Europe, though it will take time. Until then, you can support my work here.
Once again, I’d like to thank Belinda Warfield for her regular contributions, which make my work possible, and maintain my faith in humanity.
Last week I released a new, extended trailer for Sisters For Sale, the forthcoming feature-length documentary on the search for – and attempted rescues of – my kidnapped friends.
If you haven’t seen it already, you can check it out here:
(Can’t see the trailer? Click here).
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