Dirty Wars

The gripping new documentary Dirty Wars, which follows investigative journalist and best-selling author Jeremy Scahill as he travels through Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia to examine the underreported impact of the US military’s covert war on terrorism, makes its Columbus debut Wednesday, July 10 at 7 pm in the Wexner Center’s Film/Video Theater. After the screening Scahill will be joined by the film’s director Richard Rowley for a Q&A moderated by the Wexner Center Director of Film/Video David Filipi. Scahill will sign copies of his book Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield (the companion book to the film) in the Wexner Center Store at 6 pm.

Earlier in the day, at 11:30 am, Scahill also will take part in a Columbus Metropolitan Club luncheon forum where he will discuss his book and work. WOSU Public Media’s Mike Thompson will lead the discussion. A book signing will follow. Information on tickets is available at www.columbusmetroclub.org.

These events mark the first copresentation and collaboration between the Wexner Center and Columbus Metropolitan Club.

In Dirty Wars Scahill (author of the best-seller Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, and a reporter who Bill Moyers called a “one-man truth squad”) explores the secretive world of the powerful Joint Special Operations Command and introduces the audience to two parallel casts of characters: the CIA agents, Special Forces operators, and US-backed warlords who populate the dark side of American wars; and survivors of night raids and drone strikes, including the family of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen targeted and eventually killed by his own government. Drawn into the stories and lives of the people he meets along the way, Scahill is forced to confront the painful consequences of a war spinning out of control, as well as his own role as a journalist.

ABOUT JEREMY SCAHILL AND RICHARD ROWLEY
Scahill is the National Security Correspondent for the Nation magazine and is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at the Nation Institute. He is author of the New York Times bestseller Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (Nation Books, 2007). A frequent guest on a wide array of programs, appearing regularly on The Rachel Maddow Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, and Democracy Now! he has also appeared on ABC World News, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, BBC, Al Jazeera, CNN, the NewsHour, and Bill Moyers Journal.

Scahill’s work has sparked several Congressional investigations and won some of journalism’s highest honors. He was twice awarded the prestigious George Polk Award, in 1998 for foreign reporting and in 2008 for Blackwater.

Over the course of fifteen years, Richard Rowley, co-founder of Big Noise Films, has made multiple award-winning documentary features, including Fourth World War and This Is What Democracy Looks Like. His shorts and news reports are also regularly featured on and commissioned by leading outlets including Al Jazeera, BBC, CBC, CNN International, Democracy Now!, and PBS. Rowley is a co-founder of the Independent Media Center. Rowley has been a Pulitzer Fellow, Rockefeller Fellow, a Jerome Foundation Fellow, and a Sundance Documentary Film Program Fellow.