Inside the Iraqi Insurgency - exclusive first

[OldCorpse]

For the first time, we're taken inside the Iraqi insurgency. Should be interesting:

The first feature-length documentary film about the insurgency in Iraq will have its world premiere this weekend at the Full Frame Festival in Durham, North Carolina.

Bingham views there to have been a lack thus far in comprehensive coverage of the insurgency's ideology and motivation, leading to a lack of understanding about the reasons for the violence they wreak--a violation of Sun Tzu's laws of war.

http://www.meetingresistance.com/synop.html

MEETING RESISTANCE is a verité-style non-fiction feature-length film set in the streets, alleyways and ubiquitous teashops of the Adhamiya neighborhood of Baghdad. It enters the physical and psychological heart of the "insurgency" against the American occupation. Photojournalists/directors Steve Connors and Molly Bingham spent ten-months among the insurgents there to create this exclusive, unique, and at once horrifying, compelling and insightful film about their lives, motivation, and goals.

MEETING RESISTANCE focuses on eight "insurgents", each with his or her own tale and reasons for opposing the American-led occupation, yet all people who within days of the fall of Baghdad were arranging themselves into resistance cells, finding the money and weapons to fight against the American military. The film witnesses how they began to organize themselves, reveals why they have decided to violently oppose the occupation of the country, and hears in their words the underlying ideological foundations to their fight and how and why those have changed over time.

MEETING RESISTANCE is a fascinating journey through a tumultuous period with diverse members of the Iraqi resistance. Their personal stories as well as their ideological ones are at once dramatic, eye-opening, and concerning - and they challenge the notion that those opposing the occupation are simply "dead enders," "common criminals," "Al-Qaeda operatives" and "die-hard Ba'athis."

Directors Steve Connors' and Molly Bingham's unsurpassed access and visually stunning cinematography makes this film a one-of-a-kind; essential viewing for audiences around the world concerned with a deeper understanding of the current situation in Iraq, and with the human condition of resistance.

[sushi]

Looks interesting.

Unfortunately, we will only see what they saw up until May 2004 (Almost 3 years ago).

[OldCorpse]

Looks interesting.

Unfortunately, we will only see what they saw up until May 2004 (Almost 3 years ago).

I think there are two reasons for this. One, it takes awhile to put a film together, what with editing and so on. Two, and more importantly, the situation in Iraq deteriorated dramatically with every single passing month. I imagine after awhile, it became suicidal for filmmakers to try to hang around the insurgency which routinely kidnapps whoever they can, where the violence is totally chaotic, and where the danger is so extreme.

Still, it is precisely the beginning of the insurgency that are perhaps the most interesting - the very origin of it, and why we failed to meet that challenge.

[sushi]

Visited their web site and saw this FAQ:

Q. Why did you stop when you did?
We stopped when it became no longer possible to work and we felt we had done everything we could to understand the movement that was happening before it went entirely underground. The characters we had repeatedly interviewed through the fall and winter had quickly dropped off - unable or unwilling to talk to us. The last interview we did was in May 2004 with 'The Warrior' - and his commander had finally put his foot down and told him he was never to see or talk to us again. The window that provided the glimpse into the resistance and had been quickly closing since we arrived was now shut. It had become dangerous for Iraqis even to be seen talking to a foreigner, who were all suspected of being foreign intelligence or military. Any Iraqi suspected of collaboration with a foreign intelligence was on very thin ice. Translators working for the US military and even for journalists were being killed for their association with foreigners.

The country had also gone through a powerfully violent eruption in April 2004 with Falluja under heavy US attack after the killing of four Blackwater Security contractors. Simultaneously, Moqtada Sadr's followers were rising up against the American forces. It was the occupier's nightmare: Sunni and Shia fighting them at the same time from different corners and for different reasons and sometimes even joining forces. Then the Abu Ghraib story broke and the country paused, horrified. The individuals we were still in touch with at that point talked with a new sense of justification and vigor about their fight. But they were also saying that they could no longer meet us.

For the project the events of April 2004 capped the first year of the insurgency and revealed the powerful combustion that was possible in Iraq, and that we understood why events were unfolding as they were. The first year of the movement - what it was about, how it had changed, developed, progressed and adapted - were things we understood. It was time for us to put the story we had reported before the public. The dwindling access our characters were allowing us combined with increased violence towards foreigners and the very real threat of kidnapping meant that it was time to wrap up and go. The kind of work we had been doing, and the working method we'd been using had become un-tenable. We drove out of Iraq on the long road to Amman, Jordan at the end of May 2004.