English and Arabic with English subtitles, 2013, 100 minutes, color, U.S.A./United Kingdom, U.S. Documentary

On May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden, America’s public enemy number one, was killed by Navy SEALs in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The raid, a watershed moment that gripped most of the world, lasted a mere 40 minutes. But the hunt for bin Laden took two decades.The search began with a team of mostly female CIA analysts, known in intelligence… »

About the Director

Cast and Credits

The 2013 Sundance Film Festival begins soon on January 17- 27 2013.  This year 115 feature films were selected from a total of 4,044 submissions.  The Sundance Institute chose movies coming from 32 countries and 50 first-time filmmakers. 99 of these features will be first-time screenings.

Janson Media is excited about the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and is looking forward to these films:

1)  American Promise

Perhaps this documentary’s release is very timely: 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation and 50 years after the Civil Rights Act, Joe Brewster and Michele Stephenson examine the lives of middle class black families in America.  American Promise focuses on the story of a black boys’ experiences in the contemporary education system.  These children and their families navigate through a microcosm of America filled with stereotypes and subtle discriminations.  This documentary provides a portrait on the status of race relations in modern America through the past 12 years as young men journey toward a high school diploma.

Twitter: @PromiseFilm

 

2)  Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield

 Richard Rowley follows Jeremy Scahill in an investigation of the U.S.’s “covert wars.”  Scahill puts a spotlight on the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) which carries out the U.S.’s secretive and clandestine missions across the globe.  This organization crosses names off of its “kill list” which may even include American citizens.  However, JSOC is so furtive that its members technically do not exist in its records and will never be called before public Congressional hearings.  Scahill brings these people and their victims on camera.  Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield may be a muckraking documentary that exposes secrets that the U.S. Armed Forces tries to bury.

Twitter: @DirtyWars

 

3)  Manhunt 

 The British filmmaker Greg Barker made this documentary for HBO.  It was inspired by Peter L. Bergen’s book and is the story of the men and women who had been tracking Osama bin Laden even before he took responsibility for the infamous 9/11 attacks in New York City.  Manhunt tells the tale of America’s pursuit of the world’s most wanted man includes the perspectives of the people closest to the matter.

Twitter: @gjbarker

 

4)  Narco Cultura 

Politics in America have been complicated with issues of immigration and drugs.  Beyond that, politics in Latin American countries have issues with emigration and domestic drug wars.  Shaul Shwarz, an award-winning Israeli photojournalist, created this picture to explore the culture and lifestyle of narcotrafficking on both sides of the Mexican-American border.  Effectively, smuggling drugs provides an escape from poverty.  But this comes with a price: a life of violence along with an addiction to money and drugs.

 

5)  God Loves Uganda  This documentary is about African religious leaders taking cues from America’s religious right.  Roger Ross Williams directs this movie from his own perspective as the son of an American Baptist minister.  He puts the camera on Ugandan evangelicals and American missionaries devoting themselves to saving the souls of Africans struggling through an environment of poverty and entropic social change.  These stories may perplex an American audience that can hardly fathom the confusing state of modern African culture being pulled in so many different directions.

Twitter: @GodLovesUganda