Director, actor and writer Rob Reiner will receive the A Tribute to…Award at this year’s 2017
Zurich Film Festival which takes place from September 28 to October 8, 2017.
Reiner will be in Zurich to receive the prestigious award in person on Saturday September 30. ZFF will host the World Premiere of his latest film SHOCK AND AWE.
Reiner will also take part in a special ZFF Masters session on the same day, and as part of the A Tribute to… award, ZFF will present a retrospective featuring several of Reiner’s most iconic films including THIS IS SPINAL TAP, STAND BY ME, WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, MISERY, A FEW GOOD MEN and THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT (the latter two both written by
fellow ZFF honoree Aaron Sorkin).
SHOCK AND AWE
In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the government of the United States, led by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, began maneuvering and mobilizing for an invasion of Iraq. In the absence of concrete evidence, the White House and its allies concocted a platform for invasion justified almost entirely on questionable intelligence and misleading information. The media bought their tale. Every media organ in America became a megaphone for the hawks in Washington, amplifying the Administration’s hysteria and pushing its propaganda; every major news organization became complicit in the path to war – except one.
Knight Ridder was a consortium of 31 newspapers across the country. Based in Washington, D.C., its newsroom counted among its millions of readers a sizable number of soldiers and their families at dozens of military bases nationwide. This is the untold true story of an intrepid team of four reporters who dared to ask the questions their colleagues did not. They tapped sources which others ignored. They remained sceptical when others were easily convinced. They wrote stories disputing the Administration’s claims that Iraq was complicit in the attacks of 9/11 and that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. They were called anti-American. They were labelled traitors. They were told time and again that they were wrong – by the government, by pundits, and by colleagues.
Reporters Jonathan Landay (Woody Harrelson) and Warren Strobel (James Marsden), working with the support of their editor John Walcott (Rob Reiner) and famous war correspondent Joe Galloway (Tommy Lee Jones), set forth to sift through the chaos and official lies, uncover the truth, and report it to the public. In the face of intense scrutiny and pressure, during a time of pro-invasion cheerleading by the majority of their media colleagues, they dared to uphold the best tenets of their profession. Theirs is a story of speaking truth to power – and the public – in a time when America needed it the most. The government got its war, but these reporters got it right.
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