Weapons of Mass Deception - WMD (the film) coming to a theatre near you

[paineinthearse]

View trailer - http://www.wmdthefilm.com/Video/wmd.mov

You can download our movie flier http://www.wmdthefilm.com/WMDflier.pdf

You can download our NY Press Release http://www.wmdthefilm.com/NYC.doc

There were two wars going on in Iraq - one was fought with armies of soldiers, bombs and a fearsome military force. The other was fought alongside it with cameras, satellites, armies of journalists and propaganda techniques. One war was rationalized as an effort to find and disarm WMDs - Weapons of Mass Destruction; the other was carried out by even more powerful WMDs, Weapons of Mass Deception.

The TV networks in America considered their non-stop coverage their finest hour, pointing to the use of embedded journalists and new technologies that permitted viewers to see a war up close for the first time. But different countries saw different wars. Why?

For those of us watching the coverage, war was more of a spectacle, an around the clock global media marathon, pitting media outlets against each other in ways that distorted truth and raised as many questions about the methods of TV news, as it did the armed intervention it was covering-and it some cases-promoting.

WMD, a 100 minute non-fiction film, explores this story with the findings of a gutsy, media insider-turned-outsider, former network journalist, Danny Schechter, who is one of America's most prolific media critics. Schechter says he "self-embedded" himself in his living room to monitor media coverage, by fastidiously tracking the TV coverage on a daily basis. He wrote thousands of words daily about the coverage for Mediachannel.org, the world's largest online media issues network, and then collected his columns, blogs and articles in a recently published book, EMBEDDED: Weapons of Mass Deception (Prometheus Books) . He has continued his one-man investigation with WMD, a two-hour indie non-fiction film that asks the questions that his media colleagues refused to confront before, during and after the war. Featuring footage from inside Iraq, and inside the media, WMD tracks the media war through February 2004.

A Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University, and radio news director turned CNN and Emmy Award winning ABC News Producer, Schechter wears several hats at the same time. He is now an award-winning independent investigative journalist and filmmaker as well as an outspoken author. Danny Schechter is not afraid to take on his own industry. WMD busts through so-called "objective reporting" to challenge media complicity with the government and its cooperation in presenting the Iraq War the way it did. This is a hard-hitting, yet personal film that looks at the television war and asks why the American audience lapped it up and how the Pentagon helped shape media coverage.

Biographies

FILMMAKER

Danny Schechter - Dissector/Writer/Director/Producer
Danny Schechter is a television producer and independent filmmaker who also writes and speaks about media issues. He is the author of "Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception: How the Media Failed to Cover the Iraq War" (Prometheus Books, October 2003); "Media Wars: News At A Time of Terror (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003); "The More You Watch, The Less You Know" (Seven Stories Press) and "News Dissector: Passions, Pieces and Polemics" (Akashic) Books and Electron Press). He is the executive editor of MediaChannel.org, the world's largest online media issues network, and recipient of the Society of Professional Journalists' 2001 Award for Excellence in Documentary Journalism.

He has produced and directed many TV specials and documentary films, including "Counting on Democracy" about the electoral fiasco in Florida narrated by Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee; the post 9-11 film We Are Family" (2002) shown at the Sundance Film Festival; "Nkosi: A Voice of Africa's AIDS Orphans" (2001) narrated by Danny Glover; "A Hero for All: Nelson Mandela's Farewell" (l999); "Beyond Life: Timothy Leary Lives" (1997); "Sowing Seeds/Reaping Peace: The World of Seeds of Peace" (1996); "Prisoners of Hope: Reunion on Robben Island" (1995, co-directed by Barbara Kopple); "Countdown to Freedom: Ten Days that Changed South Africa" (1994), narrated by James Earl Jones and Alfre Woodard; "Sarajevo Ground Zero" (1993); "The Living Canvas" (1992), narrated by Billy Dee Williams; "Beyond JFK: The Question of Conspiracy" (1992, co-directed by Marc Levin and Barbara Kopple); "Give Peace a Chance" (1991); "Mandela in America" (1990); "The Making of Sun City" (1987); and "Student Power" (1968).

Schechter is co-founder and executive producer of Globalvision, a New York-based television and film production company now in its 16th year. He founded and exec-produced the series "South Africa Now" and co-produced "Rights & Wrongs: Human Rights Television. He has specialized in investigative reporting and producing programming about the interface between human rights, journalism, popular music and society. His career began as the "News Dissector" at Boston's leading rock station, WBCN. Later, Schechter was a producer for ABC NEWS 20/20. He produced 50 segments for ABC and won two national Emmys and was nominated or two others.

A Cornell University graduate, he received his Master's degree from the London School of Economics, and an honorary doctorate from Fitchburg College. He was a Neiman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard, where he also taught in 1969. After college, he was a full time civil rights worker and then communications director of the Northern Student Movement, and worked as a community organizer in a Saul Alinsky-style War on Poverty program. Then, moving from the streets to the suites, Schechter served as an assistant to the Mayor of Detroit in 1966 on a Ford Foundation grant.

Schechter joined the start-up staff at CNN as a producer based in Atlanta. He then moved to ABC as a producer for 20/20. Schechter has reported from 49 countries and lectured at many schools and universities. He was an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. Schechter's writing has appeared in leading newspapers and magazines including the The Nation, Newsday, Boston Globe, Columbia Journalism Review, Media Studies Journal, Detroit Free Press, Village Voice, Tikkun, Z, and many others. Danny Schechter can be reached at [e-mail]


EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS

Anant Singh , Videovision Entertainment
Anant Singh, President of Videovision Entertainment, has produced over 50 motion pictures since its founding 18 years ago. All the films produced by VideoVision are distributed worldwide. The company has been responsible for bringing to the screen South Africa's major anti-apartheid films; some of them made during the apartheid era. They include A Place of Weeping, The Stick, Sarafina! and Cry, the Beloved Country. In 1996, the company produced, Paljas which was accepted as South Africa's first official entry for Oscar consideration.

VideoVision has had successful co-production relationships with international partners, the product of which are a number of quality films with internationally recognizable cast and renowned directors. Most of these pictures are released in the major territories including the United States and the United Kingdom.

Barbara Kopple, Cabin Creek Films
Barbara Kopple is one of America's pre-eminent documentary filmmakers with two Academy Awards for her distinguished work.

Rory O'Connor, Globalvision, Inc.
Rory O'Connor, a network veteran award-winning journalist and filmmaker is the President of Globalvision Inc.

http://www.wmdthefilm.com/mambo/index.php

WMD is 2005's F/9-11, facing distribution and screening challenges. If you know of friendly theatres willing to show it, send contact information to [e-mail]

We are currently looking for volunteers to help us get the word out by handing out fliers, postcards, and sending out announcements. If you would like to help out, please contact [e-mail]

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1. FREEDOM CINEMA FESTIVAL HONORS DANNY SCHECHTER

FREEDOM CINEMA FESTIVAL HONORS DANNY SCHECHTER
Written by Administrator

Thursday, 06 January 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Cinema Libre
Contact: Lauri Blue, [phone]

FREEDOM CINEMA FESTIVAL HONORS DANNY SCHECHTER "THE NEWS DISSECTOR"
Retrospective of Media Critic's Films to Accompany Screening of latest movie - WMD Screening slated for Park City Utah on January 27, 2005

Known by fans as "Danny Schechter, the News Dissector," he has produced TV series, specials and directed 15 independent films on a wide range of subjects. Those films are the subject of a tribute and retrospective at the 2005 Freedom Cinema Festival to be held concurrently with the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, from Jan. 25 through Jan. 30.

The Freedom Cinema Festival will also screen Schechter's most recent award-winning film "WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception," a no holds barred take on the media coverage of the war in Iraq. "WMD" is in current release from Cinema Libre Distribution.

One of the top alternative and truly independent festivals during this annual convergence of arts, media and commerce, Freedom Cinema Festival provides a unique forum for leading socially conscious artists addressing socially and politically relevant issues of the day.

-----------------------------------------
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Cinema Libre
Contact: Lauri Blue, [phone]

FREEDOM CINEMA FESTIVAL HONORS DANNY SCHECHTER "THE NEWS DISSECTOR"
Retrospective of Media Critic's Films to Accompany Screening of latest movie - WMD Screening slated for Park City Utah on January 27, 2005

Danny Schechter has had many media incarnations. His resume includes work as an investigative reporter in print, a radio news director at Boston's pioneering WBCN, a local on-air TV reporter, Emmy Award-winning TV producer at CNN and ABC, co-founder of the indy media company Globalvision and the author of six books on media issues. He is the "blogger-in-chief" at MediaChannel.org, the world's largest media issue network, where he serves as Executive Editor.

And he is also a filmmaker.

Known by fans as "Danny Schechter, the News Dissector," he has produced TV series, specials and directed 15 independent films on a wide range of subjects. Those films are the subject of a tribute and retrospective at the 2005 Freedom Cinema Festival to be held concurrently with the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, from Jan. 25 through Jan. 30.

The Freedom Cinema Festival will also screen Schechter's most recent award-winning film "WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception," a no holds barred take on the media coverage of the war in Iraq. "WMD" is in current release from Cinema Libre Distribution.

One of the top alternative and truly independent festivals during this annual convergence of arts, media and commerce, Freedom Cinema Festival provides a unique forum for leading socially conscious artists addressing socially and politically relevant issues of the day.

The 2005 Freedom Cinema Festival will show excerpts from Danny Schechter's films beginning with his first, "Student Power," made in 1968 with support from the British Film Institute, about the protests at the London School of Economics and screened in the London Film Festival that year. It will also include clips from: three of the five films he made with (and about) South Africa's Nelson Mandela; "Beyond JFK," co-directed with Academy Award-winning documentarian Barbara Kopple on the issues raised in Oliver Stone's controversial film on the Kennedy Assassination; socially responsible music projects including "The Making of Sun City, "The Making of Give Peace a Chance" and "The Making and Meaning of We Are Family," a post 9-11 film screened at Sundance in 2002.

Schechter, co-producer of the public television human rights series "South Africa Now" and "Rights and Wrongs" will also showcase films on human rights in Africa, China and Bosnia. A clip to be shown from a Canadian TV news interview calls Schechter a media revolutionary and includes part of a confrontation he had in the past with media mogul Rupert Murdoch at the United Nations.

"We at Globalvision are thrilled that my partner Danny Schechter is being honored for his important contribution to independent film and social change," says Rory O'Connor, president of Globalvision. "His track record of excellence offers unflinching perspectives on the times we live in."

Freedom Cinema Festival will be headquartered on the second floor of the Main Street Mall, 333 Main Street (directly across the street from the Egyptian
Theater) in Park City. This central location houses the box office, screenings, bookstore, Fairtrade Cafe, music lounge and their offices.

The 2005 Freedom Cinema Festival selected over 64 films submitted from filmmakers around the world.

''Freedom Cinema Festival is at the center of the new political cinema movement, bringing together the leaders of the activist arts and media including cinema, music, comedy, graphic arts and journalism, creating a meeting place for this work, giving the industry a way to access the artists and their work directly.''

For more information about Danny Schechter's WMD, visit www.wmdthefilm.com. The website includes reviews and a recent New York Times profile on Schechter's work. Danny can be reached at [e-mail], [phone], ext. 3006

Contact Lauri Blue to set up interviews with Danny at Park City, Utah. [phone]

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For tickets and information call [phone], or visit
www.freedomcinemafestival.org. This event is co-sponsored by Mother Jones Magazine, ACLU and SpeakOutNow.org.