2008 Films

Infinite Justice / Full Battle Rattle

• Infinite Justice

  
  2006. Germany. 3 mins. Directed by Karl Tebbe. Produced by Marjorie Bendeck.

  The shortest film in the festival, by a student filmmaker from Dortmund, Germany, tells the long and complex story of the war in Iraq. But it tells it in fits and starts—with animated war toys and action figures reconstructing familiar television images frame by frame to the sound of fractured bits of television newscasts. TBW

• Full Battle Rattle

  
  2008. USA. 90 mins. Directed by Tony Gerber, Jesse Moss. Produced by Tony Gerber, Jesse Moss.

  Deep within the Mojave Desert, the United States army has erected a cluster of fake Iraqi villages where American soldiers spend three weeks training before deployment. Valued at over a billion dollars, this simulation employs thousands of role-players and a team of specialists who choreograph their every move. At first glance, viewers might assume they are looking at footage from the war, as every detail, from reporters to assassinations to medical emergencies and negotiations, is recreated to prepare the soldiers for real action. Focusing specifically on the village of Medini Wasl, the film moves—with both humor and horror—between the perspectives of the soldiers and those of the “civilians,” a great number of whom are played by Iraqi exiles. In a town that’s all too fake, the war remains all too real. ST

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