Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2006

Occupation: Dreamland
Garrett Scott, Ian Olds (U.S., 2005)

In early 2004, disillusioned with the mainstream media's portrayal of the Iraq war, directors Garrett Scott and Ian Olds (Cul de Sac: A Suburban War Story) went to the front themselves, hoping to create a document of the time. Occupation: Dreamland is the result, “a sympathetic look at the Average Joe doing duty in Hell” (Variety) that follows eight members of the 82nd Airborne trying to survive the chaos of the streets of Fallujah, and to make sense of the reasons they were brought there. “What we see is a respectful and determinedly nonpartisan portrait of regular guys—the smart and the average, the blusterers and the introverts, the gung-ho and the conflicted—all doing their best to carry out inchoate orders in an untenable situation. As the men openly question the usefulness of their presence in Iraq, Occupation: Dreamland presents a compelling study of composure and decency in the midst of overwhelming pointlessness” (Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times).

• Photographed by Olds, Scott. (79 mins, Color, Beta SP)