The Promise of Freedom

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Budget

Raised to date: $111,348.00
Estimate to complete: $289,657.00
Total Estimated Budget: $401,005.00
The budget numbers above are accurate as of 04/30/2009

Status

Production

Media Type

Video

Project End Use

Key Personnel

Beth Murphy
Producer/Director

Beth Murphy is a documentary producer, director, author and university professor. She is the founder of Principle Pictures, an independent film company committed to giving voice to the voiceless, raising awareness about important social issues, and inspiring education and action through entertainment.

Murphy is Director and Producer of BEYOND BELIEF, an acclaimed feature documentary that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and went on to win Grand Jury and Audience Awards at film festivals across the United States. Her programs are broadcast on numerous national and international networks including The Sundance Channel, The History Channel, Discovery, Lifetime and PBS.

She is most recently the winner of the Gracie Allen Award from American Women in Radio and Television and the One Shared World International Outreach Award.

She authored Fighting For Our Future (McGraw Hill, 2003), a companion book to one of her films, and is a contributing author to Open My Eyes, Open My Soul (McGraw Hill 2004). As an adjunct professor, Murphy has taught international media and media ethics courses at Suffolk University and American University Paris.

Murphy holds a B.A. in History from the University of Connecticut, and an M.A. in International Relations and International Communications from Boston University. She studied documentary filmmaking at George Washington University. Murphy serves on the board of the International Institute of Boston, an organization that helps immigrants and refugees.

Sean Flynn
Co-producer

As a producer and cinematographer at Principle Pictures, Sean is involved in all aspects of documentary development, production, marketing and distribution. Most recently, he served as Associate Producer and Director of Photography in Afghanistan on BEYOND BELIEF, which premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. In 2008, Sean was selected as a filmmaker resident at the Content + Intent Documentary Institute at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Before joining Principle Pictures, he studied film and political science at the University of Southern California and the University of Otago in New Zealand. In addition to his passion for documentary filmmaking, Sean is an avid traveler and musician.

Kevin Belli
Director of Photography / Editor
Kevin Belli - As Director of Photography and Senior Editor since 2001, Kevin Belli is an important creative force behind all Principle Pictures programming. His work is a combination of exhaustive technical know-how and natural instinct… a breadth that allows for the important subtle nuances in shooting and editing.

Kevin’s extensive credit list includes the award-winning feature documentary BEYOND BELIEF, History Channel’s FLYING PYRAMIDS—SOARING STONES, Discovery Channel’s FLU TIME BOMB, Lifetime’s FIGHTING FOR OUR FUTURE, and Discovery Health’s BREAST CANCER LEGACY. Kevin’s work as DP has taken him to 12 countries on 4 continents. He began his filmmaking career working as an assistant editor on Loop Dreams: The Making of a Low Budget Movie, which won three regional Emmy Awards.

Outreach/Engagement Plan(s)

The outreach strategy for THE PROMISE OF FREEDOM will build on existing partnerships with organizations such as The List Project, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting and Americans for Informed Democracy, reaching out to a core audience of social/political activists, policymakers, soldiers and veterans, students, journalists, Muslim-Americans and other immigrant/refugee communities. We hope to bring larger organizations on board, such as Amnesty International and Refugees International, as well as local refugee resettlement agencies to conduct community screenings and discussion series across the country. We are developing and seeking funding for a multimedia interactive website to promote the film, facilitate online discussion/learning/activism and serve as a “living historical document” of the unfolding Iraqi refugee crisis. This website will be heavily interlinked with The List Project’s Netroots social network, which connects ordinary Americans with newly-resettled “Iraqi allies” in the U.S., helping them rebuild their lives here. By encouraging audiences to extend a helping hand to our endangered “Iraqi allies,” the film and outreach campaign allow Americans to reconnect with our core democratic values and our sense of interdependence in a globalized world.

Funders

Name	Amount	Date
private fundraising house party (multiple donors)	$3,000.00	12/01/2008
IFP / Fledgling Fund Award for Best Socially Conscious Documentary	$10,000.00	09/01/2008
Chicken and Egg Pictures	$10,000.00	08/01/2008
Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting	$22,000.00	01/01/2008

Location

47 Main St.
#2
Plymouth, 02360

See Google Maps

Short Synopsis

THE PROMISE OF FREEDOM is a modern-day Oskar Schindler story about a young American fighting to save thousands of Iraqis who are endangered because they worked for the United States. Frustrated by a stagnating government bureaucracy that has failed to protect these people, Kirk Johnson begins compiling a list of the names of our “Iraqi allies” and, one by one, helping them find refuge and a new life in America.

Description/Treatment

THE PROMISE OF FREEDOM is a modern-day Oskar Schindler story that focuses on Kirk Johnson, a 27-year-old American aid worker fighting to save tens of thousands of Iraqis whose lives are in danger because they worked for the U.S. to help rebuild Iraq. After leading reconstruction teams for two years, Kirk returns home only to discover that many of his former Iraqi colleagues are being killed, kidnapped or forced into exile by radical militias. Frustrated by a stagnating government bureaucracy that has failed to protect these people, he begins compiling a list of the names of our “Iraqi allies” and helps them find refuge and a new life in America.

The 85-minute documentary traces the three-year evolution of Kirk’s campaign from a one-man crusade into a nationwide grassroots movement to awaken America’s conscience. We follow his efforts to build a coalition of soldiers, journalists, lawyers and concerned citizens, pressuring the U.S. government to open its doors to Iraqis who lost everything because they believed in the cause of democracy. Meanwhile, the film reveals the interconnected stories of several Iraqis on “The List” who are living in hiding and stranded in countries that don’t want them. Yaghdan Hameid and Ehab Al-Kuttub, two of Kirk’s friends who fled Iraq after receiving death threats, are among the first of several hundred “Iraqi allies” to make it to the United States. But thousands more are left behind, like Basma Al-Obaidy, a former interpreter in Baghdad. Eventually Kirk is forced to confront the limitations of humanitarian action. How many people can he save? Where does his commitment to the Iraqi people end?

Shot across the U.S., Egypt, Syria and Iraq – primarily in cinema verité style, but interwoven with interviews, archival footage, and home video – the film is at once a series of intimate personal narratives and an international suspense drama. As the story unfolds, we begin to see how Kirk’s ethical dilemma mirrors America’s troubled conscience about the war, and how each refugee’s personal narrative reflects the Iraqi people’s ambivalence about American values and growing disillusionment with the U.S.-led occupation. Each character in the film – like the nations they represent – is trying control his/her own destiny, but the forces of history pull their lives in unexpected directions.

While the number of Iraqis displaced by the war grows to nearly 5 million, threatening to destabilize much of the Middle East, and President Obama ponders withdrawal, THE PROMISE OF FREEDOM raises difficult questions about the limits of our responsibility for the future of Iraq and for those who risked their lives because they believed most in America’s promises. It is not a film about the war itself, but rather the long-term consequences it will have in the hearts and minds of those who were a part of it on both sides. It is a story of sacrifice, betrayal and honor set against one of the most urgent moral and political issues of our time.

THE PROMISE OF FREEDOM is being produced for film festival release, limited theatrical distribution and broadcast. Distribution and marketing efforts will be tied into a nationwide outreach campaign, leveraging partnerships with non-profit organizations such as The Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, The List Project and Americans for Informed Democracy. The initial target audience for the film will include social/political activists, policymakers, soldiers and veterans, students, journalists, Muslim Americans and other immigrant and refugee communities.

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