Facing long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military has adopted a controversial new program, ‘Human Terrain Systems’, to make cultural awareness a key element of its counterinsurgency strategy. Michael Udris’s Human Terrain (2010) exposes this and the U.S. effort to enlist academia in the war effort. Having gained rare access to war games in the Mojave Desert and training exercises at Quantico and Fort Leavenworth, Udris takes the viewer into the heart of the war machine and the shadowy collaboration between American academics and the armed services.
Taking the theme “condemned to be free,” each of the films in the 2012 Ethics Film Series in some way explores how individuals – even in the most restrictive, oppressive circumstances – claim their existential freedom by taking responsibility for their decisions and actions. The consequences of these claims, and the weight of their responsibility, may appear overwhelming, but it is this acknowledgement of freedom that enables authentic ethical action.
A post screening discussion features Michael Udris.
Co-sponsored by the Center for Documentary Studies and the Program in Arts of the Moving Image.
Free and open to the public.
Monday, April 23, 7pm
Griffith Film Theater, Bryan Center, Duke University (map).
Parking is available in the Bryan Center parking deck.