First Run/Icarus Films have announced the acquisition of an unconventional, docu tale about a good-deed-gone-wrong that was spawned when actor-turned-director Liev Schreiber was filming Everything Is Illuminated. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for “Best Documentary” at the 2007 AFI Fest in Los Angeles (see IONCINEMA.com’s coverage and interview by Yama Rahimi here), a Special Jury Prize at the 2007 Chicago International Film Festival, and a prize from the Rotterdam Film Festival, Nina Davenport‘s Operation Filmmaker will receive it theatrical debut this summer (June 4th) at NYC’s IFC Center with more openings in other cities to follow.
The docu takes place in the wake of “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” American actor had an idealistic notion: to rescue an Iraqi film student from
the rubble of his country and bring him to the West to intern on a Hollywood
movie (Everything Is Illuminated). It promised to be a heartwarming tale, a
small victory out of the troubled mission of the U.S war in Iraq. But as in the
war itself, “good” intentions yielded unintended consequences, and even this
operation doesn’t go according to plan.
