Video link: Think Progress

Transatlantic film forum: The Boys from Baghdad High

13 February 2008

Film Showing at 1800-1930

Discussion 1930-2000

Royal United Services Institute, Whitehall, London

It's back to school time. A group of Iraqi boys are returning to their classroom for their last year in high school in the world's most dangerous city - Baghdad. The four friends are Christian, Kurdish, Shia and Sunni. Will their friendship survive the sectarian violence ripping their city apart? Will they see their 18th birthdays or even graduate? The boys have the cameras. "The Boys From Baghdad High" is their story.

Laura Winter, the documentary's producer-director, will lead a discussion after the screening about the challenges in presenting this human dimension to conflict in Iraq. Often the defence analyst, interested parliamentarian, and student of international relations all too easily get caught up in strategy, tactics, the global and regional implications of the conflict. Although this film does not take a position on the war - it simply shows the war through the eyes of the innocent.

The Transatlantic Security Programme is pleased to invite you to a special viewing of the new documentary "The Boys from Baghdad High" which recently aired on the BBC.*

This event is free for members of the Institute, to become a member please click here. Non members can attend but there will be a £5 charge.

To register for this event please contact Jennifer Walker, Event Manager at jenniferw@rusi.org

Reviews for The Boys From Baghdad High:

Variety wrote, 'this is history writ on a small personal scale, away from the frontlines, but in its own small way, it says more about the tragedy of Iraq than pumped-up fakumentaries like Brian De Palma's "Redacted."

The Times reviewer called "The Boys From Baghdad High," "Terrific."

In the Scotsman the reviewer wrote, "I won't get this terrific film out of my head for a good while."

The reviewer at the Radio Times wrote, "We could do with more films like this."

The British Press Association called it, "the most memorable film of recent times."

Laura Winter

Laura has worked as a freelance producer for CNN, for CBS 60 Minutes and CBS Evening News in the U.S., Iraq and Afghanistan. In Kabul she was the radio correspondent for CBS News. Laura has filed stories and shot photos in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan for the Christian Science Monitor, the New York Daily News and other newspapers and magazines. In Iraq Laura covered the fall of Baghdad, the rise of the insurgency in the capital and Faluja, the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Tikrit, and mass graves in al Hilla and abu Ghraib. In Afghanistan she reported on the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora, the revival of the Taliban and the country's first presidential and parliamentary elections. Laura has also worked as a newspaper reporter in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Hong Kong.

*"The Boys From Baghdad High" first aired on the BBC 8th January 2008. The documentary will air on HBO this Spring and on ARTE next month.

www.rusi.org/events

Europe.  Feel free to arrest these people on site.  Come on, some secret intelligence agency somewhere has got to have some semblance of "intelligence".

They demolished the world trade center towers, covered up the evidence and then attacked two countries on a whim.  Afghanistan because they wanted the drug trade back and Iraq for the oil.