As part of the School of Communication's Reel Journalism Film Festival, SOC professor Bill Gentile offered a sneak preview of his documentary, "Dateline Afghanistan: Reporting the Forgotten War" on Saturday night.
Shown at American University's Greenberg Theater, the 60-minute film chronicles the month Gentile spent in Afghanistan following fellow reporters and photographers, as well as an embedded assignment with U.S. troops. The documentary "explores the conflict in Afghanistan through the prism of the men and women who cover it," according to festival advertising.
Gentile thanked those who assisted him in making the documentary and School of Communication Dean Larry Kirkman for his support. Gentile said that one of the biggest challenges for himself and his colleagues came during the editing process, when they took the 55 hours of material and "boiled it down to 52 minutes of tape."
After the documentary, Gentile and Pam Constable, a deputy foreign editor at The Washington Post, fielded questions from the audience. Constable, also a former Washington Post bureau chief in Kabul, Afghanistan, lived in the country for three years prior to the filming of this documentary.
According to Constable, one of the highlights of the film was Gentile's ability to capture Afghans in their natural environment. Once outside news agency bureaus and into Afghani homes, "you could see how the Afghan people look, how they talk [and] how they interact with each other," Constable said.
Early in the discussion, Constable raised a question she frequently asked herself while working in Afghanistan.
"The big question is how much of the story are we able to tell in a situation like that? You saw [in the film] half a dozen or more journalists try to take different parts of the story, put it together. ... We all get little pieces," Constable said.
Gentile concurred, saying journalists are left to "do what we can do" to cover the many issues facing Afghanistan today.
When asked if it was difficult to capture footage while embedded with U.S. troops, both Gentile and Constable agreed that the experience was a positive one. Constable said that she "never felt second-guessed or meddled with." Gentile added that the troops he worked with showed a real sensitivity to Afghan culture.
Ben Sander, a senior in the School of International Service who attended the festival, had high praise for the documentary.
"I think it's very interesting to see not only journalists at work in a conflict zone," Sander said, "but also to learn more about a country that has been largely forgotten by the American public. It allows us to learn more about Afghan culture and the difficulties faced by both the press and the military"
