Ghosts of Abu Ghraib is a 2007 documentary film directed by Rory Kennedy

Rory Kennedy

Rory Elizabeth Katherine Kennedy is an American documentary filmmaker and producer. She is the youngest of the eleven children of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy and his wife Ethel .-Early life and education:...

. It is an examination of the events of the 2004 Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse

Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse

Beginning in 2004, human rights violations in the form of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, including torture, rape, sodomy, and homicide of prisoners held in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq came to public attention...

 scandal. The film premiered January 19, 2007 at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival

2007 Sundance Film Festival

The 2007 Sundance Film Festival ran from January 18 until January 28, 2007 in Park City, Utah with screenings in Salt Lake City, Utah and Ogden, Utah. It was the 23-rd iteration of the Sundance Film Festival...

.

The film aired on HBO on February 22, 2007. It was also shown at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival on March 23, 2007 and at the Cleveland International Film Festival on March 25, 2007. Working Films coordinated the US national community engagement campaign with Ghosts of Abu Ghraib. It brought together the National Religious Campaign Against Torture

National Religious Campaign Against Torture

The National Religious Campaign Against Torture is a U.S. non-governmental organization committed to engaging people of faith to work together to ensure that the United States does not engage in torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of anyone, without exceptions...

, the American Civil Liberties Union

American Civil Liberties Union

The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...

, faith groups and others to end US policy sanctioning torture.

Critical reception

The film was nominated for 4 Emmys

Emmy Award

An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

 at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards

59th Primetime Emmy Awards

The 59th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards were held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California on September 16, 2007 and were televised live on Fox at 8:00 p.m. EDT for the first time in high definition...

 in the categories of Outstanding Non-Fiction Special, Outstanding Directing for Non-Fiction Programming, Outstanding Picture Editing for Non-Fiction Programming, and Outstanding Sound Editing for Non-Fiction Programming. It won the award for Outstanding Non-Fiction Special.

External links

• Ghosts of Abu Ghraib Official Website
• Ghosts of Abu Ghraib at Working Films
• Ghosts of Abu Ghraib at the Iraq Media Action Project
• Profile, from the 2007 Sundance Film Festival
• Ghosts of Abu Ghraib at Metacritic
  Metacritic
  Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
  
  
• Mother Jones review of Ghosts of Abu Ghraib