28/08/2018

"Private War" / Private Peace


This trailer resonates very strongly...

As a journalist writing regularly on displacements, postcolonial issues and post-conflict, I deliberately chose to not report in war zones during battles.

I reported in Haiti during riots, what was nicknamed the "Global food crisis" in 2008, I later settled in East Africa and reported in Somalia and post-war Uganda.

I went to Mogadishu to report about a time of peace, I've lived in Central African Republic to work with an agency distributing food and document life in displaced people's camps, I travelled to Iraq, in Kurdistan, only to report on how helping the displaced people, taking pictures for a NGO.

I think it was always a conscious choice to privilege peace in my thoughts and not war... As our thoughts create our reality.

Yet, I've worked with many photographers who have been through very similar stories. On of my best friends reported in Lebanon, Gaza and Iraq during wars. And the truth is the first thing we need in order to obtain peace and justice...

Very moving trailer:


A Private War: OFFICIAL TRAILER - Coming Soon




Follow the film: Facebook.com/APrivateWar Twitter.com/APrivateWar Instagram.com/APrivateWar In a world where journalism is under attack, Marie Colvin (Academy Award nominee Rosamund Pike) is one of the most celebrated war correspondents of our time. Colvin is an utterly fearless and rebellious spirit, driven to the frontlines of conflicts across the globe to give voice to the voiceless, while constantly testing the limits between bravery and bravado. After being hit by a grenade in Sri Lanka, she wears a distinctive eye patch and is still as comfortable sipping martinis with London’s elite as she is confronting dictators. Colvin sacrifices loving relationships, and over time, her personal life starts to unravel as the trauma she’s witnessed takes its toll. Yet, her mission to show the true cost of war leads her -- along with renowned war photographer Paul Conroy (Jamie Dornan) -- to embark on the most dangerous assignment of their lives in the besieged Syrian city of Homs. Based on the extraordinary life of Marie Colvin, A PRIVATE WAR is brought to the screen by Academy Award nominee and critically acclaimed documentary filmmaker Matthew Heineman in his pulse-pounding narrative feature debut

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Read more from USA Today:


Exclusive: Rosamund Pike fights 'A Private War' in first trailer for Oscar hopeful

When Rosamund Pike signed on early last year to "A Private War," an upcoming biopic of tenacious war correspondent Marie Colvin, she couldn't have imagined how much it'd resonate in the current climate. 

"I didn't realize how timely it would be, with journalists under attack and truthful reporting suddenly called into question," Pike says. "I feel that there's no better moment to be telling the story of a journalist who literally put herself on the line to give a voice to people who didn't have a voice themselves."

A Private War" (in theaters Nov. 2 in New York and Los Angeles, expanding nationwide Nov. 16) traces the three-decade-long career of Colvin, an American reporter for British newspaper The Sunday Times who was killed on assignment in Syria in 2012 at age 56. The film's trailer and poster, as well as a handful of new images, are exclusively premiering on usatoday.com. 

Co-starring Jamie Dornan and Stanley Tucci, the drama follows Colvin into some of the most dangerous regions of the Middle East, covering conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and going toe-to-toe with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in an interview. It also shows her struggles re-acclimating to civilian life, using alcohol and her wicked sense of humor to stave off the nightmares of what she'd seen in war zones. 

"She’d say that at parties in London, she didn’t want to walk across the room and have people say, 'Oh, here come stories about Beirut again,' " says Pike, who is back in the awards race this year after her Oscar-nominated turn in 2014's "Gone Girl." "She wanted for people to feel that there was a humor and spirit to her; that just because you’ve seen suffering, doesn’t mean you live suffering at every moment. But of course, she was haunted forever by everything she saw."

To prepare for the role, Pike, 39, spoke to many of Colvin's friends, including photographer Paul Conroy, who is played by Dornan in the movie and was on set in Jordan throughout shooting. She also pored over footage of Colvin, trying to replicate her physicality and voice.

Given director Matthew Heineman's background in documentaries such as "Cartel Land" and "City of Ghosts," "I wanted to give him a version of the character that he could film at any point he chose, so if we were traveling in a car somewhere, he could just turn his camera on and find Marie," Pike says. 

The biggest challenge was playing blind in her left eye, which Colvin lost after she was hit by shrapnel in Sri Lanka in 2001. Colvin donned an eye patch from then on, which Pike opted to wear even when she wasn't filming. 

"I thought it was important for me to experience the world as it really was with the eye patch, so I'd walk through the streets and go out for dinner with it on," Pike says. "Living with the eye patch was very disconcerting, actually. You do feel very vulnerable to the traffic, crossing roads and stuff coming from the side. Also, people react to you with it: children with fear or laughter or surprise. Everybody stares." 

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