The Prisoner Or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair represents a follow-up to husband-and-wife filmmaking team Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein’s critically-worshipped, defiantly nonpartisan documentary Gunner Palace (2004), on the day-to-day of American soldiers stationed on the Iraqi front. In that earlier picture, Tucker and Epperlein stumble across Yunis Khatayer Abbas, a Middle Eastern man wh
Sixty years ago, in the spring of 1945, Allied forces liberating Europe found evidence of atrocities which have tortured the world’s conscience ever since. As the troops entered the German concentration camps, they made a systematic film record of what they saw. Work began in the summer of 1945 on the documentary, but the film was left unfinished. FRONTLINE found it stored in a vault of London’s
The military conflict in Chechnya has now been dragging on for more than ten years. During this war Moscow has tried every means possible to prevent it being reported in the press. And so all contacts with members of Chechen resistance are considered illegal. According to the latest report to the human rights organization Human Rights Watch, in 2004 1,700 disappeared in the republic without trace,
As a Pararescueman in Iraq, David Broyles saved lives and helped those in need. After leaving the military, he wanted to continue that mission. He found a charity providing assistance to severely wounded and disabled veterans. To raise funds and awareness through the charity, he wanted a tough challenge in their honor. David discovered that fewer Americans had swum across the Strait of Gibraltar t
Iraq war vets from across the country talk about why many of them oppose the war. Most of these vets remain loyal to their branch of the service, but believe that U.S. involvement in Iraq is wrong. This documentary is not a statement from the political left– many of these vets who now abhor the war come from conservative backgrounds. You will meet Dave, from Illinois, who believed he was there to
Mordechai Vanunu, Israel's nuclear whistle blower, was jailed in 1986 for publishing photographs of Israel's nuclear bomb factory at Dimona. Olenka Frenkiel reveals the extent of Israel's nuclear gagging. The Sunday Times Revelations hit the press in October 1986. Vanunu has spent 17 years in jail, a11 of which were in a minute solitary confinement cell - and he has just had his appeal for parole
During the war in Vietnam, thousands of people in the Vietnamese province of Cu Chi lived in an elaborate system of underground tunnels. Originally built in the time of the French, the tunnels were enlarged during the American presence. When the Americans began bombing the villages of Cu Chi, the survivors went underground where they remained for the duration of the war. The secret tunnels, which
The American Army’s intrusion in Hollywood war films may surprise some. In fact, the U.S. Army secret services have had close ties with American filmmakers for several decades. The movie Top Gun, for instance, was filmed with the support and approval of the U.S. Army. There is even a special bureau, the Film Liaison Office, that oversees these issues for the Pentagon and the Capitol. It has a clea
After the Vietnam War, hundreds of thousands of U.S. veterans suffered toxic reactions, neurological damage, and rare cancers due to exposure to 2,4,5,-D and 2,4,5-T dioxin that was used in the form of the defoliant Agent Orange. Unfortunately, the U.S. military denied the problem and failed to heed any of the lessons of this chemical butchery. Instead, it expanded its harmful legacy to the curren