Dark Side of the Moon

How could the flag flutter when there’s no wind on the moon? During an interview with Stanley Kubrick’s widow an extraordinary story came to light. She claims Kubrick and other Hollywood producers were recruited to help the U.S. win the high stakes race to the moon.

In order to finance the space program through public funds, the U.S. government needed huge popular support, and that meant they couldn’t afford any expensive public relations failures. Fearing that no live pictures could be transmitted from the first moon landing, President Nixon enlisted the creative efforts of Kubrick, whose 2001: a Space Odyssey (1968) had provided much inspiration, to ensure promotional opportunities wouldn’t be missed.

In return, Kubrick got a special NASA lens to help him shoot Barry Lyndon (1975). A subtle blend of facts, fiction and hypothesis around the first landing on the moon, Dark Side Of The Moon illustrates how the truth can be twisted by the manipulation of images.

With use of ‘hijacked’ archival footage, false documents, real interviews taken out of context or transformed through voice-over or dubbing, staged interviews, as well as, interviews with astronauts like Buzz Aldrin and others, Dark Side Of The Moon navigates the viewer through lies and truth; fact and fiction. This is no ordinary documentary. Its intent is to inform and entertain the viewer, but also to shake him up – make him aware that one should always view television with a critical eye.

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Operation Hollywood

How the Pentagon Shapes and Censors the Movies

In Operation Hollywood, filmmaker Emilio Pacull follows up an investigative study by film industry journalist Dave Robb on the help producers have sought from the military over the years. Robb, who worked for Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, says he found himself obsessed with the minutiae of these negotiations with the boys with ships, tanks, materiel, information, bases, access to land, troops and some very real-looking fireworks. His report, a page-by-page study of scripts submitted by the studios to the Pentagon, reveals an intriguing pattern of censorship and propaganda. For Hollywood, acceptance of this system means the difference between "full co-operation" and no co-operation. For the military, it involves maintaining an idealised image of the forces, their behaviour, their view of the world, the superiority of their form of patriotism, and for that matter, their reasons for going to war.

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