In 2004, a year after the US invasion of Iraq, actor Liev Schreiber was just ramping up production on his directorial debut, Everything is Illuminated. When he heard about Muthana Mohmed, a Baghdad film student whose studies had literally been bombed out from under him, Schreiber and his producers thought they were making a politically timely, charitable move by inviting Mohmed to be an intern on their set. A separate crew was assigned to document the process, but when the young Iraqi turned out to be an unreliable, manipulative screw-up with ambitions of Hollywood fame far outreaching his work ethic, what was originally intended as a feel-good behind-the-scenes bonus feature on Schreiber's DVD release turned into this "sad, funny, obsessively watchable/avert-your-eyes documentary [which] doesn't just illustrate the truth of the saying 'No good deed goes unpunished.' It spreads the punishment around, from the executive suites of Hollywood to the mean streets of Baghdad. Everyone here comes out smelling bad—that's why the film's so good." (Boston Globe) "The whole film could be seen as a metaphor for America's misadventures in Iraq: Schreiber and company came in expecting flowers and sweets from a grateful native, and wound up in a quagmire." (Onion AV Club) more at http://icarusfilms.com/new2008/oper.html Video projection.
2008, color, 1 hour 35 minutes, USA