This documentary is relevant now because it is about al Jazeera's early coverage of the invasion of Iraq and now al Jazeera is
up for sale.
The movie was made by Jehane Noujaim (Startup.com), an award winning Arab-American who has lived within and embraced both worlds. synopsis
For those who have not yet seen it, Rotten Tomato Rating is 96%! [continued below]
Here are summaries of a couple of reviews:
Seattle Post Intelligencer
Friday, June 25, 2004
Surprisingly, Al-Jazeera sees the war from both sides
By WILLIAM ARNOLD
To most Americans, the Al-Jazeera Arab News Agency is the media outlet of al-Qaida -- the journalistic bad guys who give air to the bin Laden tapes and regularly inflame the Arab world by broadcasting the bloody collateral damage of the U.S. campaign in the Middle East.
MOVIE REVIEW for CONTROL ROOM, DIRECTOR: Jehane Noujaim, DOCUMENTARY
But this eye-opening documentary, which played in the recent Seattle International Film Festival and now is back for a theatrical run, breaks that stereotype and puts a tormented human face on the demon that has been such a thorn in the side of the Bush administration.
As directed by Egyptian American filmmaker Jehane Noujaim, the film follows several Al-Jazeera producers and reporters as they go about the business of reporting the Iraqi war during the period from Bush's 48-hour ultimatum to his triumphant speech after the fall of Baghdad.
Essentially, they're part of the same heavily managed pool of network journalists -- the "control room" of the title -- that's covering the war mostly through coalition press releases and the spin of talented U.S. military press-liaison officers.
But these journalists also have access to sources the others do not, they're willing and eager to show the human cost of the war and, though they're an embodiment of free speech and should hate the Saddam Hussein regime, they're not impartial. They can't help but root for the Arab side. [...]
Washington Post
If Ibrahim and Rushing are the stars of "Control Room," the film's most indelible and in many ways heartbreaking character is Samir Khader, al-Jazeera's soft-spoken senior producer who, although sympathetic to Arab nationalism, is deeply committed to the role of the press in a free society. Tirelessly trying to keep ahead of breaking events, including the death of one of his employees, he cuts a sympathetic figure as he comes under fire from both U.S. and Iraqi officials for carrying the other side's water. (With each side so zealously trying to control its images, it may be a good sign that they're both unhappy with him.) In one scene, he upbraids one of his producers for choosing to interview an ideological U.S. academic. "That wasn't analysis!" he yells. "That was a crazy hallucination!"
This movie revives the horror of that day, March 19, 2003 but watching the faces of the Arab people in 'the control room' as they are seeing the first bombs fall on Baghdad allows us to imagine it from their point of view. It is heartbreaking. There was the young Arab journalist struggling with a definition of objectivity, "but they are killing my people!" he cries out. It can make us revile even more the chickenhawks, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz in the administration who made this decision to destroy a country on the false pretenses that it was a threat "to the whole planet" (says a young American soldier.)
We also get a glimpse of what a beautiful city Baghdad was before the invasion. Yes Saddam was feared and hated and his images were everywhere but the US could have helped the Iraqi people do it themselves, as they protest in the movie.
The chickenhawks were helped by a willing press. That did not include Al jazeera. It was hated by both sides in the conflict as it tried to tell a human story.
The Bush administration have put unrelenting pressure on al Jazeera since that day. Now the almost independent and courageous news source is bankrupt due to that pressure on the government of Qatar to withdraw funds and it is up for sale.
A sad turn of events which is all part of our study of progaganda on this blog.
[...]The United States has accused it [al jazeera] of fomenting anti-Americanism and slammed the station for showing graphic horrors of war. It is no secret that the Bush administration would like it to disappear.[...]
According to an article in last Sunday's New York Times, it looks as though Qatar may bow to American pressure. [OnLine Journal]
This is a real documentary, I urge those who have not seen it, to rent the video, and those who have seen it, to see it again.