No End in Sight (2007)

Director:

Charles Ferguson

Writer:

Charles Ferguson

Genre:

Documentary | War

Tagline:

The American Occupation of Iraq - The Inside Story From the Ultimate Insiders

Plot:

A comprehensive look at the Bush Administration's conduct of the Iraq war and its occupation of the country.

Plot Keywords:

Occupation | Iraq | Iraq War | White House | Power Politics

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 10 wins & 8 nominations

Cast

Campbell Scott	...	Narrator (voice)
Gerald Burke	...	Himself
Ali Fadhil	...	Himself
Omar Fekeiki	...	Himself
Robert Hutchings	...	Himself
Paul Hughes	...	Himself
Marc Garlasco	...	Himself
George Tenet	...	Himself (archive footage)
James Bamford	...	Himself
Dick Cheney	...	Himself (archive footage)
Donald Rumsfeld	...	Himself (archive footage)
Paul Wolfowitz	...	Himself (archive footage)
Colin Powell	...	Himself (archive footage)
Samantha Power
Feisal Istrabadi	...	Himself (as Faisal Al-Istrabadi)
George Packer	...	Himself
Joost Hiltermann	...	Himself
Ahmad Chalabi	...	Himself (archive footage)
Lawrence DiRita	...	Himself (archive footage)
Barry Posen	...	Himself
Lawrence Wilkerson	...	Himself
Seth Moulton	...	Himself
David Yancey	...	Himself
Hugo Gonzalez	...	Himself
Chris Allbritton	...	Himself
Jay Garner	...	Himself (as General Jay Garner)
David McKiernan	...	Himself (archive footage)
James Fallows	...	Himself
Nir Rosen	...	Himself
Paul Eaton	...	Himself
Robert Perito	...	Himself
Paul Bremer	...	Himself (archive footage)
Walter Slocombe	...	Himself
Amazia Baram	...	Himself
Yaroslav Trofimov	...	Himself
Ray Jennings	...	Himself
Linda Bilmas
Ann Gildroy
Sérgio Vieira de Mello	...	Himself (archive footage)
Jamal Benomar	...	Himself
Mahmoud Othman	...	Himself
Paul Pillar	...	Himself
Zalmay Khalilzad	...	Himself (archive footage)
Robert Gates	...	Himself (archive footage)
Aida Ussayran
Matt Sherman	...	Himself
Ashton Carter	...	Himself

Directed by
Charles Ferguson

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Charles Ferguson

Produced by
Jennie Amias	....	producer
Charles Ferguson	....	producer
Alex Gibney	....	executive producer
Audrey Marrs	....	producer
Jessie Vogelson Childs	....	producer (as Jessie Vogelson)
Mary Walsh	....	associate producer (as E. Mary Walsh)

Original Music by
Peter Nashel

Cinematography by
Antonio Rossi

Film Editing by
Chad Beck
Cindy Lee

Production Management
Alan Oxman	....	post-production supervisor
Jessie Vogelson Childs	....	post-production supervisor (as Jessie Vogelson)

Sound Department
Neil Cedar	....	sound editor
Gautam Choudhury	....	additional location sound
Paul Flinton	....	additional location sound
David Hocs	....	location sound mixer
Peter Miller	....	additional location sound
Peter Miller	....	sound recordist
James David Redding III	....	sound re-recording mixer
James David Redding III	....	supervising sound editor
Charles Tomaras	....	additional location sound

Camera and Electrical Department
Maryse Alberti	....	additional cinematographer
Mia Barker	....	additional camera operator
Charlie Beyer	....	additional cinematographer
Ben Bloodwell	....	assistant camera
Mariusz Cichon	....	assistant camera
Nathan Clapp	....	assistant camera
Andrew Federman	....	lighting assistant
Christopher Gleaton	....	assistant camera
Tom Hurwitz	....	additional cinematographer
Alan McIntyre Smith	....	gaffer (as Alan Smith)
Rey Miranda	....	assistant camera
Edward Rodriguez	....	assistant camera
Jon Shenk	....	additional cinematographer
Joia Speciale	....	assistant camera
Brett Wiley	....	additional cinematographer

Editorial Department
Marc Brown	....	film output: digital intermediate
Will Cox	....	colorist: high definition
Donna Donato	....	assistant editor
Bob Eisenhardt	....	editorial consultant
Edward Jaszi	....	assistant editor
Antonia Law	....	assistant editor
Alan Oxman	....	editorial consultant
Sandy Patch	....	editor: high definition
Stephen Stept	....	editorial consultant
David Kuther	....	additional editor: HDTV (uncredited)

Music Department
Brian Deming	....	score mixer
Brian Deming	....	score recordist
Tracy McKnight	....	music supervisor

Other crew
Jay Beverly	....	production assistant
Kit Bland	....	production assistant
Ryan Bronz	....	production assistant
Robin Cutter	....	production accountant
Richard Dworkin	....	transcriptor
Jacqueline Eckhouse	....	production counsel (as Jackie Eckhouse Esq.)
Kathy England	....	production insurance
Ali Fadhil	....	translator
Blair Foster	....	additional archival researcher
Marc Garlasco	....	archive footage
Roja Gashtili	....	production coordinator
Erin Heidenreich	....	sales agent
Warzer Jaff	....	production crew: Iraq
Amer Mohsen	....	translator
Christopher Murphy	....	research and archival footage
Dana O'Keefe	....	sales agent
Emily Osborne	....	production coordinator
Dana Reiser	....	production insurance
Nir Rosen	....	archive footage
Nir Rosen	....	production crew: Iraq
Andrew Siceloff	....	production intern
David B. Smallman	....	litigation counsel (as David Smallman)
Dan Stein	....	production assistant
Robert Stein	....	legal counsel
Greg Steinbruner	....	production assistant
Bethany Thomas	....	production insurance
Adriano Valle	....	production assistant

Thanks
Jake Abraham	....	thanks
Joella Atilano	....	thanks
Reagan Beck	....	thanks
Eamonn Bowles	....	thanks
Trish Brush-Krums	....	thanks
Ivan Capovski	....	thanks
Won Hee Chang	....	thanks
Antoine Douaihy	....	thanks
Omar Fekeiki	....	thanks
Charlotte Ferguson	....	thanks
Ed Gargan	....	thanks
Alex Gibney	....	thanks
Richard Gladstone	....	thanks
Jamie Gross	....	thanks
Carter Gunn	....	thanks
Kate Hohman	....	thanks
Tom Hurwitz	....	thanks
Carl Kayson	....	thanks
Ellen Knickmeyer	....	thanks
Camille Leblanc	....	thanks
Tom Luddy	....	thanks
Jesse Michaels	....	thanks
Kristen Molina	....	thanks
Charles R. Morris	....	thanks
George Packer	....	thanks
Andrew Pang	....	thanks
Chad Queirolo	....	thanks
Louise Roug	....	thanks
Orville Schell	....	thanks
Alex Schuessler	....	thanks
Olivier Varenne	....	thanks
Alice Waters	....	thanks
Yasmina Ykelenstam	....	thanks
Jeany Zhao	....	thanks

Production Companies

• Red Envelope Entertainment
• Representational Pictures

Distributors

• Magnolia Pictures (2007) (USA) (theatrical)
• Red Envelope Entertainment (2008) (USA) (DVD)
• Roco Films (2007) (Non-USA) (all media)

Other Companies

• Bigstar Motion Design  graphics
• Donna Daniels Public Relations  publicity
• Falcon Security  security services
• Post Factory NY  post-production facilities
• Sync Sound  sound re-recording

Also Known As:

Runtime:

102 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Arabic

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Singapore:PG | Australia:M

Company:

Red Envelope Entertainment

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Goodbye Solo (2008)

The Best Iraq-Themed Movie of 2007

In retrospect, I suppose 2007 will go down as the year in which filmmakers began addressing the problems in Iraq. The number of Iraq-themed films has piled up and disappeared at a breathtaking pace. Maybe it's not a surprise that the best of them so far is the one that doesn't try to turn the conflict into something fictional. All of the other Iraq movies have been well intentioned but limp; you can tell they want to address what's wrong without truly enraging anyone. Well, Charles Ferguson, the writer and director of "No End in Sight," has no such qualms, and his film enrages indeed.

Meticulously crafted, "No End in Sight" proves what everyone has already known for a long time: the Iraq conflict is a complete disaster. The film is certainly biased; anyone who wants to discount it based on that fact is welcome to. But anyone who wants to deny that America's handling of post-invasion Iraq has been anything but a complete "quagmire" (to borrow a word from the film) is hopelessly deluded. "No End in Sight" is not about whether or not the war in Iraq was justified; in fact, the film goes out of its way to affirm that at first many Iraqis were happy that the U.S. had deposed Saddam Hussein. Rather, the film is about what went wrong after the invasion, about how groups that actually had a reconstruction plan were met with indifference at every step by an administration that really cared nothing for the Iraqi people even as they fed the American public a lot of hooey about bringing freedom and democracy to them. This film makes clear that for all of its recent talk about dangerous nations destabilizing the world's peace, the United States is one of the most dangerous countries currently in existence.

It's terrifying that governments are run like this; if this film is accurate, my office at work is better managed than the project for occupying post-war Iraq. Ferguson can't be blamed if his film seems one sided. None of the key decision makers managing Iraq policy -- Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Bremer -- agreed to be interviewed for the film. The only consolation the film offers is that Cheney, Bush and Rumsfeld now look like complete fools. Either they thought they had a good plan for rebuilding Iraq and proved themselves to be ridiculously incompetent; or (and more likely) they never really cared about what happened to Iraq in the first place and have proved themselves to be downright scary.

Grade: A