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"A chilling exposé [that] highlights the morally murky waters into which ongoing conflicts and advanced technology have led us." – Hollywood Reporter
In Afghanistan, a shadow war is being waged both in the sky and on the ground; a war whose soldiers are invisible, ruthless and almost entirely unaccountable. This is the age of the drone and Afghanistan is the experimental field on which the ethics and possibilities of a deadly new technology are being determined, unheeding of the often catastrophic human cost.
Filmmaker Sonia Kennebeck literally dances on the edge of treason with her deeply unsettling new documentary, National Bird. Following three former drone operators as they struggle to come to terms with the murderous effects of their actions, Kennebeck's film is both a stinging broadside on a military regime marked by secrecy and a confessional for a new breed of war crime. Created with the backing of documentary legends Errol Morris and Wim Wenders, National Bird is a searing dispatch from the frontline of a war that doesn't have a frontline any more – simply lists of those who can be targeted, and an ever-mounting death toll of the innocent.
Alex Edney-Browne will host a Q&A with Lisa Ling and Cian Westmoreland at the session on 30 July.
