Can a documentary film inspire a person to run for Congress? Indeed, it can. If it is the right film.
I just finished attending the screening of "The Prisoner: or How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair", a film by Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker. The Year;y Kos schedule describes it as follows:
In an absurd comedy of errors, a freedom-loving Iraqi journalist is mistaken as Tony Blair's would-be assassin and sent to Abu Ghraib Prison where he discovers the true meaning of liberation.
I have to believe that the inclusion of the word "comedy" is a rhetorical device.
This was anything but. It follows one man's horrible experience after being identified wrongly in a suspected assassination plot against Tony Blair. To see Yunis Khatayer Abbas's story is to understand how horrific things have been thanks to our ill-conceived war. At the same time, it was fascinating to hear Michael Tucker explain how this film came to be made. Tucker was imbedded with the unit that raided Abbas's family home. Long after the raid, Tucker came to be reconnected with Abbas and put together this very powerful film.
One of the most disturbing thing about this story is how woefully sloppy our intelligence network seems to have been over there. Abu Graib and the Ganci detention camps were full of thousands of prisoners with no intelligence value... as they were classified. And yet, the beaurocracy that kept prisoners there seems stupefying.
Jon Powers joined Tucker in the discussion. Powers was part of the military unit that was in on the original raid. His additional commentary was quite insightful in understanding how had this war is on soldiers never trained for what they are doing.
"This film change my life," Powers went on to say after someone asked him why he is running for office. In touring to promote this film, "I knew I had to do something." He went on to talk about how he has seen the U.S.' image fall on from a personal perspective, comparing visits with friends in other countries before and after the war. Now, he is running for Congressional office in New York's 26th District.
This film came out in 2006, and perhaps you have already seen it. It had a very small theatrical release, but fortunately NetFlix bought the film rights, and you can get it from them. I would strongly encourage you to seek it out.
Cross-posted on Kerfuffle