Tuesday 26 February 2008

Eva Orner's 2UE interview on Oscar triumph and how to make a prize-winning documentary reveals some basic truths not only about filmmaking but also about journalism. So much of the latter is poor in these days of ordinary violence.

A transcript of the interview follows.

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It's a very very harsh critique of the current administration's torture policies post-9/11.

And it's told - sort of metaphoically - through the story of a young Afghani taxi driver called Dilawar who was falsely picked up an tortured and ultimately killed at Baghram Prison in Afghanistan.

And we shot in Guantanamo and we shot in Afghanistan. You know, we do a lot of interviews around the country and throughout Europe. We use a lot of archival material which it's, you know, hard and complicated to get.

So it's a long process and our researchers had to do painstaking work. And, you know, people don't necessarily want to talk to you.

It's about being really brave and tenacious. Just being really dogged about trying to find information when you make these sort of films.

It's an important film and the point of the film is to make people angry, to make them enraged and to get dialogue happening about what's going on in this country.

And, you know, I think to some degree it's working. People are angry here.

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I saw Orner walking on the red carpet in Hollywood on Monday night. And I saw her flushed and happy face as she stood to approach the stage, to receive her prize.

Note, furthermore, the graffito backdrop to the photo of Orner (at top). It puts me in mind of George Gittoes' film about Iraq.

Gittoes, too, is carrying a bright torch for liberal values and dialogue.

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