Soldiers of Conscience

Receives an Emmy® Award Nomination!

Trailer

Last week, Soldiers of Conscience was nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Editing!

As many of you know, the Emmy is the highest television award there is - an equivalent of an Oscar for TV.

A special congrats goes to the film's editors - Gary Weimberg and Josh Peterson.

As you can imagine, this is the kind of recognition that helps the film bring greater attention to the critical issues of conscience and war facing us all - service members and civilians alike.

The award winners will be announced at a ceremony in New York City in late September. We'll keep you posted - but keep your fingers crossed!

For a full list of the nominees, visit: EmmyOnline.tv

It's Not Extremism to Say This Should Stop

A New Film About Rachel Corrie {A Review}

This is a somber movie indeed, and timely as the United Nations attempts an investigation of the Israeli attack on Gaza. Rachel re-examines the death of Rachel Corrie, crushed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza in 2003. The director, Simone Bitton, describes it as “the examination of an examination”, with much of the film focusing on re- visualizing what happened, interviewing witnesses, and on the Israeli investigation of Rachel’s death. The counterpoint is Rachel’s fellow International Solidarity Movement activists reading excerpts from her diary........>

Sundance Channel on Iraq: 6th Anniversary

The Sundance Channel just launched a website in observance of the sixth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

From a post by Anna Brew, found at After Downing Street hattip for the lead:

The highlight of the site is a large collection of webisodes and clips from two documentaries that will premiere on television on March 19th (the date of the 2003 invasion): Hometown Baghdad and Heavy Metal in Baghdad. Both films capture the day-to-day realities confronted by Iraqi citizens.

Hometown Baghdad


HOMETOWN BAGHDAD

Hometown Baghdad follows three Iraqi college students based in Baghdad as they try to maintain a semblance of normal existence amidst the escalating violence and chaos around them. Expanding the acclaimed 2007 online series of the same name, directors Hawes, Hillis and Turkey deliver a visceral portrait of the war's toll, interweaving their chronicle with footage from their subjects' frank video diaries.

The online version of Hometown Baghdad was created and produced by the New York-based Chat the Planet and drew hundreds of thousands of viewers worldwide when it launched in March 2007. The series won
three 2008 Webby Awards, in the categories News and Politics Series, Public Service and Activism, and Reality. In an article about the online series for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, pop culture critic
Cary Darling wrote that the series' scenes of ordinary lives "offer a glimpse into a society few knew existed: young Iraqis who are clinging to a global, middle-class identity while the world around them crumbles into chaos."

Heavy Metal in Baghdad


HEAVY METAL IN BAGHDAD

Eddy Moretti and Suroosh Alvi's Heavy Metal in Baghdad follows the heavy metal band Acrassicauda from the fall of Saddam in 2003 through the nightmare of the 2006 insurgency and into their new lives as
"heavy metal refugees." Moretti and Alvi, who are the chiefs of VICE Films and VICE Records, established a relationship with Acrassicauda when it was profiled in VICE magazine in 2003; they began their
efforts to film the band in 2005, when their company sponsored an Acrassicauda concert at a Baghdad hotel. Heavy Metal in Baghdad is their feature directorial debut. In a review of the New York Times,
Nathan Lee called the film "an intrepid, unlikely and altogether splendid feat of D.I.Y. reportage. ... this rock-doc like no other electrifies its genre and redefines headbanging as an act of hard-core courage."

Acrassicauda has been featured in the NYTimes and Fox News ... and they've seen some attention from Metallica

IRAQ ON SUNDANCE

Films & Stories About the Conflict

For the last six years, Sundance Channel has been following the happenings of the Iraq War through riveting documentaries and features. Each story is presented though a unique perspective, from political analysts giving their two cents to 20-something Iraqis trapped in a war zone. Each story gives a unique, human perspective on this thoroughly complicated conflict.

Here are some other perspectives on the Iraq War that have appeared on sundancechannel.com:

Read about TAKING CHANCE, a feature that premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival starring Kevin Bacon. Based on a true story, it tells of a Marine who volunteers to escort the remains of a 19-year-old killed in Iraq to his family in a small Wyoming town.

Learn more about Iraq's national water and land planning efforts in order to secure long-term stability and security of their country. Particularly in the Middle East, there is a great need for the availability of fresh water.

View festival coverage on IN THE LOOP, a satire on the inner workings of the US and British government prior to a major invasion. It features a stellar ensemble cast that includes James Gandolfini, Tom Hollander, and Anna Chlumsky.

Check out BODY OF WAR, another standout documentary as told through the eyes of a young soldier who was paralyzed from the chest down after being shot in Sadr City, Iraq. It airs on March 16th at 7:30pm.

IN THE LOOP

Writer/director Armando Iannucci’s IN THE LOOP, a film participating in the 2009 Sundance FIlm Festival. It is a comedic satire about American and British relations prior to a major invasion.
......................

If Armando Iannucci’s political farce about the road to war through the corridors of power weren’t so funny, it would be utterly terrifying. When a British cabinet minister, Simon Foster, comments publicly that he thinks war is “unforeseeable,” the result is an immediate bollocking from Malcolm Tucker, the prime minister’s testy bulldog pushing for war. Unable to clarify his position, Simon is sent to Washington, where, trying desperately to be important, he meets Karen Clark, a U.S. State.>>>>>>>>>>

"CSNY: Deja Vu"

A film by Neil Young

Due in theaters July 25

The Trailer

"CSNY: Deja Vu" Trailer

The war in Iraq is the backdrop as the Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young "Freedom of Speech Tour" crisscrosses North America. Echoes of Vietnam-era anti-war sentiment abound as the band connects with today's audiences.

I caught a fresh Reuters Article, with interview, about the film just a short while ago, read through it and it peaked my interest, as a fan of CSNY and Neil Young, in finding some more.

In the spring of 2006, Neil Young was just a year removed from a near-fatal aneurysm when he became so enraged with the war in Iraq that he quickly wrote, recorded and released the protest album "Living With War."
Not two months after its release, his part-time supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young launched their Freedom of Speech tour, during which unwitting fans expecting the band's sweeter side were greeted instead with its serrated edge.

Because of the Concerts content

the move angered some fans, while inspiring others.

Angered some fans? Knowing CSNY, and especially Neil Young, how could someone call themselves Fans and attend a concert by them than get Angered because of the music they played!

I already know the reasons why, being a member of the 'Focus Groups' not to be listened to in the leadup to the invasion and long after the destruction started, as do many others.

The forthcoming documentary "CSNY: Deja Vu" charts that friction, portraying fans who saluted the group's efforts and those who felt betrayed by them, while also introducing viewers to Iraq War veterans who are now protesting the war as musicians, politicians and social workers.

The search led me to a number of articles and to a Bill Board review and a Lengthy Q&A Interview.

From the review:

Neil Young says the soundtrack to the forthcoming Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young documentary "CSNY: Deja Vu" constitutes the best album ever made by the legendary supergroup.

"It's CSNY," he told Billboard recently during a lengthy interview about the new film. "It really is CSNY. It's not overdubbed. There's no fixes. It's straight from the board."

From the interview:

It's pretty shocking midway through the movie when an irate Atlanta fan tells you to stick it up your ass, and another remarks that he wants to "knock your teeth out" for singing anti-war, anti-Bush songs. How did you react the first time you saw this footage?

With fans like that who needs the ones that never could stand you!

Wonder what these 'fans' think now, and did they purchase the album or will they now watch the film!

Abit later in the interview Neil has this to say:

Well, I think misleading the country into a war with Iraq by misrepresenting the facts, as the Senate committee has verified that he did, that was the wrong way to go about it. I think that he took a tremendous amount of good faith and good will from around the world and used it very poorly. It's not, "What could he have done," so much as it is, "Why did he do what he did?" I mean, it's just unfortunate that his feelings and convictions took him there, and we're the ones who suffer for it -- to a lesser degree us, and to a greater degree the Iraqis. And we're all suffering for it. And it's just very unfortunate. I just feel badly about it because (pauses) it's not because I hate Bush. I just think he's a strong leader that was going in the wrong direction. It's a bad combination.

And shortly after the above he adds this:

And he needs to be impeached for what he did. I mean, the Senate has verified it. It needs to happen for history. It's like a dirty business. It needs to be taken care of. Nobody wants to be bothered, but it should happen, because do we want to let this go down in history? It's a cancer. It's a blight. It has to be eradicated. You have to look at this and go, "The president mislead the people into going to war, lost 5,000 troops, there's hundreds of thousands of people killed in Iraq, billions and billions of dollars were taken out of the economy for the war, and now we've discovered for sure -- the Senate committee has said, 'Yeah, he did. He lied.'" So what do you have to do to get impeached? What do you need to do? And who are we if we don't do it ... if we don't actually say, "Hey -- the law! You can't do that!"

Remember this song:

This Country needs to right this ship of state and abide by it's Constitution and Laws or just say The Hell With The Whole Thing and except what the few are striving for, Their Total Control and we just become the sheep of that Control!

There needs to be Accountability not only for this Country but this Planet we share!

We must really Lead, as a Nation, by Example, and the Examples we are setting are not those of a Country with Moral Values nor Intelligent Human Values!

Do on to Others as you would want Them to do onto You!

Find the Cost of Freedom

"Freedom" doesn't come to others by destroying them and their countries in Wars of Choice and the Destructive Occupations that follow, it only leads to more Hatreds, Death, and Destruction!