Operation Filmmaker is Nina Davenport’s satirical political parable about Hollywood do-gooder intentions that unexpectedly go wrong.
Filmed on the location of Liev Schreiber’s first directorial effort, Everything is Illuminated, as well as on the set of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Doom, and in Prague, London, New York, and Baghdad, Operation Filmmaker tells the story of how well-meaning Americans–including actor-director Schreiber, producer Peter Saraf (“Little Miss Sunshine”), and eventually also Davenport herself–intervene in the life of a young Iraqi film student. And how, not surprisingly, nothing goes as planned.
Muthanas experiences on the overseas film sets are contrasted with scenes of his family and friends in wartorn Baghdad. While Operation Filmmaker hoped to document a small victory out of the questionable mission of the U.S. war in Iraq, by its conclusion, the film seems more a troubling metaphor for the invasion itself.
Nina Davenport’s previous films:
HELLO PHOTO (1994)
ALWAYS A BRIDESMAID (2000)
PARALLEL LINES (2003)
