Startling and powerful, Control Room is a documentary about the Arab television network Al-Jazeera's coverage of the U.S.-led Iraqi war, and conflicts that arose in managed perceptions of truth between that news media outlet and the American military. Egyptian-American filmmaker Jehane Noujaim (Startup.com) catches the frantic action at Al-Jazeera headquarters as President Bush stipulates his 48-hour, get-out-of-town warning to Saddam Hussein and sons, soon followed by the network's shocking footage of Iraqi civilians terrorized and killed by invading U.S. troops.... Al-Jazeera's determination to show images and report details outside the Pentagon's carefully controlled information flow draws the wrath of American officials, who accuse it of being an al-Qaida propagandist. (The killing of an Al-Jazeera reporter in what appears to be a deliberately targeted air strike is horrifying.) Most fascinating is the way Control Room allows well-meaning, Western-educated, pro-democratic Arabs an opportunity to express views on Iraq as they see it--in an international context, and in a way most Americans never hear about. --Tom Keogh [show more]
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Documentary by Jihane Noujaim about war, truth and the media, focusing in particular on the 2003 Iraq conflict. Noujaim and her film crew visit the headquarters of Al-Jazeera, the first commercial non-state-owned Arab satellite channel, to find out what the news looks like from the 'other side'. As well as interviewing producers and journalists from Al-Jazeera, Noujaim talks to American correspondents from American news channels NBC and CNN. The resulting documentary raises difficult and disturbing questions about the ethics of a media-managed war, and the function of propaganda in Western society. The film premiered at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.
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