Iraq, Afghanistan Loom as Oscars Unveiled
Agence France-Presse
Jan 22, 2008
Iraq, Afghanistan loom large as Oscars nominees unveiled
Iraq and Afghanistan will loom large at this year's Oscars after films about the wars in each country dominated nominations for best documentary here Tuesday.
Three out of the five films unveiled by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences deal with conflicts in the two countries: "No End in Sight," "Taxi to the Dark Side," and "Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience."
Charles Ferguson's "No End in Sight," which explores the management of the Iraq campaign in the months following the 2003 US-led invasion, has already won a series of critical awards since its release last year.
Ferguson, former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who made a fortune from the 133-million-dollar sale of his Internet start-up to Microsoft in 1996, financed the film himself to the tune of two million dollars.
The death of an Afghan taxi driver in US custody at a military base is the subject of Alex Gibney's "Taxi to the Dark Side," which deals with America's policy on torture and interrogation.
The film has already stirred controversy in the US after a proposed poster advertising the film was banned despite the objection of Gibney, who accused authorities of "political censorship."
The poster showed a news photograph of two US soldiers walking away from a camera with a hooded detainee between them.
Meanwhile, "Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience", has won praise for giving a voice to veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. The film features interviews with US soldiers and readings of their writings by actors including Robert Duvall, Josh Lucas and Aaron Eckhart.
The other two nominees in the documentary race are controversial film-maker Michael Moore's searing indictment of the US healthcare system "Sicko" and "War/Dance" about three children living in a displacement camp in Uganda who enter a music and dance festival.
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