The 2008 Garrett Scott Documentary Development Grant is awarded to Rebecca Richman Cohen for War Don Don, Mai Iskander for Garbage Dreams, and Nathan Fisher for The Party After the War. Ian Olds will join the grant recipients for a presentation of ten-minute excerpts from their works-in-progress.

War Don Don

Rebecca Richman Cohen

War Don Don follows Issa Sesay, a Revolutionary United Front rebel commander in Sierra Leone, as he stands trial for crimes against humanity. The film interweaves the story of Sesay’s rise to power with a multifaceted account of a man whom some condemn as a war criminal and others praise for persuading the RUF to disarm.

Garbage Dreams

Mai Iskander

Known as Zaballeen, or “garbage people”, a group of waste collectors in Egypt earn their living recycling ninety percent of the trash they collect in the streets of Cairo. The film follows the community as multinational corporations hired by the Egyptian government threaten to usurp their painstaking livelihood.

The Party After the War

Nathan Fisher

In the largest exodus in six decades, at least five million Iraqis—twenty percent of Iraq’s pre-war population—have fled their homes since the United States and its allies invaded the country in 2003. The film chronicles the lives of several Iraqi refugees from a variety of ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds who now live in Syria and Jordan.