First, some sad news: Michael Hastings, the journalist whose Rolling Stone profile of General Stanley McChrystal resulted in the firing of the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, is dead at 33.
In honor of journalists brave enough to shed light on the inner workings of overseas defense operations, it might be worth attending one of four upcoming screenings of Dirty Wars, a film that brings the grisly reality of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia to the big screen. Dirty Wars is also the name of the book by investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill, national security correspondent at The Nation, which the film is based on.
Film director Richard Rowley will lead post-screening discussions on Friday and Saturday, at Embarcadero Center Cinema in San Francisco, and Shattuck Cinemas in Berkeley.
“After he gets wind of a deadly nighttime raid on a home in rural Afghanistan, Scahill does his best to investigate what really happened,” SFBG Senior Editor of Arts and Entertainment Cheryl Eddy writes in her film review, “though what he hears from eyewitnesses doesn’t line up with the military explanation — and nobody from the official side of things cares to discuss it any further, thank you very much.” Dirty Wars snagged a cinematography award at Sundance earlier this year.