BattleGround: 21 Days on the Empire's Edge

Official Selection: Mill Valley, Chicago International, Hot Docs, Amnesty International, Brisbane Int’l, Leeds Int’l, True/False (and several other indie festivals)

DVD is now available: to buy from GNN and Amazon, and to rent from Netflix, Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. If it isn’t in your local video store, tell them to order it!

Synopsis

In late 2003, two filmmakers from the Sundance award-winning Guerrilla News Network spent three weeks on the frontlines of the simmering guerrilla war in Iraq, gathering intelligence, dodging bullets, and capturing the untold stories of what has become the world’s most covered, and misunderstood, conflict.

BattleGround is an intensely emotional journey that challenges the orthodoxies of Left and Right, capturing the humanity that exists behind the headline-grabbing images of carnage and sectarian strife. Calling it a “movingly human and many-sided portrait of the war,” the New York Times Magazine singled out BattleGround from other Iraq war documentaries as “more the exception than the rule.” It a critical film for anyone who wants to understand the powerful forces that are sucking America deeper and deeper into a Middle Eastern quagmire.

BattleGround won the Silver Hugo Award for documentaries at the 2004 Chicago International Film Festival. It was acquired by Showtime and HomeVision for broadcast and home video distribution, respectively.

Critical response:

“Slickly absorbing…” – Toronto Star

“Historically, it’s essential viewing” – Chicago Tribune

“Few of the Iraq-war documentaries offer [much] self-awareness, though, and most neglect to address the war as a result of choices that might have been made differently. The one that comes closest is probably [GNN]’s ‘Battleground.’ In showing us insurgents discussing their hatred of Americans while Humvees pass by, an Iraqi translator explaining that the invasion was due to the collapse of the American economy, a former anti-Saddam guerrilla reuniting with his mother after 13 years of exile and a U.S. officer marveling at the fact that Iraqis wear jeans (‘They could be anywhere in the United States’), ‘Battleground’ provides a movingly human and many-sided portrait of the war. It is, however, more the exception than the rule.” – Tom Bissell, New York Times Magazine

“As they travel from soldier to soldier, general to general, and camp to camp, Marshall and Lappé dig up answers that shatter all myths and murky preconceptions surrounding the battle lines, breaking ideological and political barriers and helping audiences uncover the truth behind the war in Iraq as no news program or documentary has done, before or since.” – Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

“Intense, emotional and fascinating from the first frames to the last, Battleground goes beyond media madness and political posturing into the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people and of American soldiers stationed on the front lines, to examine how the conflict has changed lives. Frank, a former anti-Saddam guerrilla and torture victim exiled for 13 years, finally returns to Iraq to see his family; Iraqis living without water or electricity wonder what has happened to their home in the name of ‘freedom and democracy’; American soldiers offer surprisingly candid views about the war. Shot over three weeks in late 2003, this superb documentary offers a real-world perspective you simply won’t see anywhere outside the Middle East.” – Mill Valley Film Festival

“An honest to God documentary, refreshingly free of the kind of agendas that usually give slant to so many of the borderline propagandist films gaining notoriety in our current political climate.” “ – Brian McKay, efilmcritic.com. Read the full review here.

“Battleground is more evenhanded than one might expect, but nonetheless strongly suggests the U.S. was wrong to create this ‘quagmire’ and will find it exceedingly difficult to ‘win.’” – Variety

“BattleGround is one of the few pieces of media to appear in the U.S. revealing the opinions of those on the ground in Iraq, from Iraqi citizens to American soldiers. What emerges is a complex, humanistic account of the conflict, revealing a fundamental disconnect between Iraqi citizens and their ‘American liberators,’ and a portrait of a people who suffered under Saddam Hussein and continue to suffer under U.S. Occupation. But the film’s most powerful moments involve an Iraqi exile’s return to see his family, free to visit his loved ones after years of fearing for their lives.” – Indiewire

“A brilliantly clear-headed film on the Iraqi occupation, ‘Battleground’ gives voice to those at the heart of it all… Eschewing polemic or simplistic judgement in favour of reasoned, articulate testimony from ordinary people, this is refreshing, vital and profoundly humane filmmaking. It is also war journalism at its most necessary.” Leeds International Film Festival

“Engrossing and informative” – Chicago Reader

“With a cool score by the Soulsavers, Stephen Marshall’s nicely shot documentary is a three-week quest for someone in Iraq who can make sense of the place….An Egyptian businessman argues that American occupation will make Iraq thrive, just like Germany and Japan after World War II. A bookish African-American tank commander holds forth on capitalism and the Roman Empire, while another officer insists the insurgents lack grass-roots support and only shoot at his troops because someone paid them. I was more moved by the wordless reunions Marshall records when an anti-Saddam protestor — who fled Iraq in 1991 when he was 16 with a bullet in his back — finds his family. Marshall’s humanist agenda is transparent in a lovely montage of smiling Iraqis just going about their business of enjoying life.” – Chicago Sun-Times

“A crucial document of the human costs of war.” – Hot Docs Film Festival

“i wish i could convey the experience of the evening to everyone. go see it. while the film hasn’t made me pro-war — because it wasn’t designed to address the american cost-benefit analysis, which remains the foundation of my opposition — it enlightened me immensely about the thoughts and opinions of normal iraqis, and gave me reason for optimism. at least at that point in time, things in iraq were not nearly so awful for them as i had feared.” – gaius marius, Chicago blogger

Credits

Shot and Directed by:

Stephen Marshall

Produced by:

Anthony Lappé and Lisa Kawamoto Hsu

Edited by:

Stephen Marshall

Leo Cullen

Music by:

Soulsavers

Produced in conjunction with Oaklandish and Co.Op

Posted by silverback
Co-founder of GNN. Music video and feature film director. Co-author of "True Lies." Director/shooter of "BattleGround." Arrested at the RNC shooting first narrative feature "This Revolution." New projects: A book, "Wolves in Sheep's Clothing: The New Liberal Menace in America," out now. A feature doc, "HolyWars," will be completed in Spring '08.