INDIE FILMMAKING, IRAQ STYLE

By in News
on Wednesday, August 24th, 2005

Anybody else check out the ABC News Nightline tonight? I’m watching as I’m blogging here about Ted Koppel’s interview with Cyrus Kar, an American documentary filmmaker who was held in an American detention center in Iraq for 55 days after the cab he was riding in was pulled over. When U.S. soldiers found a collection of washing machine timers in the cab’s trunk, suddenly his camera equipment, microphone wires and the cab driver’s timers all seemed elements of potential Improvised Explosive Devices. Kar was held briefly at Abu Ghuraib before being transferred to a prison near the airport that also hosts Saddam Hussein.

Kar was legally in Iraq making a historical documentary about the Persian King Cyrus the Great, an explanation that didn’t seem to convince the young soldiers who pulled him over. After being held in prison for a few days, his story checked out in the States with the FBI, but it would then take him 47 days to get the administrative hearing that would see him released. Now, Kar has gone public with his tale of the “wanton hostility” he experienced while incarcerated.

If you missed it tonight, Koppel has a part two tomorrow.

One other strange, not so random thing: Nightline’s “closing thought” is sponsored by Ambien.

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  • Gregory Orr

    I saw the interview and was struck by the injustice done to Kar and the tone of Koppel, who tried to be fair–he did air the story after all,–but couldn’t hide his incredulity at Kar’s “naiveté.” Kar expected better from the American military–as I imagine many young Americans his age and education would. A valuable broadcast from a show that hopefully won’t suffer when Koppel leaves it this year. The current tactics of the “war on terror” may be terrible for people, but I have a suspicion it may do wonders for art.

  • Scott Macaulay

    I agree that Kopple’s tone was surprising. It’s not as if Kar is the onlyl filmmaker to try to work in Iraq after the war. A number of filmmakers have been making films about the war there and getting into a the wrong taxi is something that could have happened to any of him. What I guess makes it easy to pick on Kar is actually his subject matter — a biography of a historical figure. I think if he were doing a piece on the war he wouldn’t get hit with this criticism.

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