Product Description

Control room is a rate film that is both timely and timeless: timeless because it ecplores the ancient and complex relationship between the western and Arab worlds timely because it reveals how satellite television has changed the way wars are reported- from news providers driven by the patriotism of their audiences to army information officers driven by military objectives. Control room is a seminal documentary that explores how truth is gathered presented and ultimately created by those who deliver it.System Requirements: Running Time 86 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/MISC. Rating: NR UPC: 031398169321 Manufacturer No: 16932

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #94105 in DVD
• Brand: LION'S GATE ENTERTAINMENT
• Released on: 2004-10-26
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: Arabic, English
• Subtitled in: Arabic, English, French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 84 minutes

Amazon.com
Startling and powerful, Control Room is a documentary about the Arab television network Al-Jazeera's coverage of the U.S.-led Iraqi war, and conflicts that arose in managed perceptions of truth between that news media outlet and the American military. Egyptian-American filmmaker Jehane Noujaim (Startup.com) catches the frantic action at Al-Jazeera headquarters as President Bush stipulates his 48-hour, get-out-of-town warning to Saddam Hussein and sons, soon followed by the network's shocking footage of Iraqi civilians terrorized and killed by invading U.S. troops. Al-Jazeera's determination to show images and report details outside the Pentagon's carefully controlled information flow draws the wrath of American officials, who accuse it of being an al-Qaida propagandist. (The killing of an Al-Jazeera reporter in what appears to be a deliberately targeted air strike is horrifying.) Most fascinating is the way Control Room allows well-meaning, Western-educated, pro-democratic Arabs an opportunity to express views on Iraq as they see it--in an international context, and in a way most Americans never hear about. --Tom Keogh

From The New Yorker
A documentary, directed by Jehane Noujaim, about Al Jazeera, the Arab television station that pulls in forty million viewers without a single game show. The film was made during the invasion of Iraq by Coalition forces, an event that it covers from an angle not entirely shared by Fox News. On every side, there was a measure of wishful thinking; the staff at Al Jazeera, for example, most of them perspicacious and engaging in the extreme, appear genuinely dumbstruck when reports stating that American forces have reached the heart of Baghdad turn out to be true. More surprising still, the pivotal figure in the picture is an American-Lieutenant Josh Rushing, a press officer, who gives the Al Jazeera side of the argument a far more sympathetic hearing than the White House would consider wise. In fact, the film itself is more judicious in its choice of talking heads than in its delivery of basic information; by the end, we still know dangerously little about the origins, schedules, and funding of the station. Those who know Al Jazeera only as a bte noire of the Secretary of Defense, however, will relish the chance to see inside. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker