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Participant Productions Partners Errol Morris to Document Abu Ghraib

errol_morris Legendary Oscar winning docs director Errol Morris, director of The Fog of War, is to document the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, it was announced at the AFM over the weekend. The film is to be produced by Particpant Productions, run by former eBay CEO Eric Skoll, behind such films as An Inconveninet Truth, Syriana and Fast Food Nation.

 

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It is no surprise that someone is planning a documentary about the Abu Ghraib scandal; there will probably be a few. Already there is Robert Greenwald's latest, Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, which deals with one aspect of the prisoner abuse, and the PBS series Frontline has included the incident in its recent episode titled "The Lost Year in Iraq". However, there's a good chance that no others are or will be as good as the one Errol Morris is set to make. The project was announced Sunday by Diane Weyermann of Participant Productions (An Inconvenient Truth) during the American Film Market.

Morris has a habit of making docs that stand out even in the non-fiction genre, which despite having a seemingly general form is still comprised of distinct and divergent subgenres and styles. It is also important to point out that there is no way of knowing how this film will look or sound, considering none of Morris' films are anything alike. It is interesting, though, that he is going for another politically-tinged subject after making The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, for which he finally won his first Oscar (his most worthy, The Thin Blue Line, was ineligible for unfair reasons). As much as I will look forward to his take on Abu Ghraib, I kind of hope that he'll follow it with something less topical. There's enough political docs out there already, and Morris doesn't, or shouldn't, require such marketable subject matter.

Sony Classics, which also released The Fog of War, is already on board to distribute the film when ready.