7 lsland International Film Festival opens with film “ Weapons of Mass Deception”

7 lsland International Film Festival starting from January 26, 2006, Republic day of India was open with a recorded message from Hon Abul Kalam, the president of India and & smt. Kiran Bedi. Veteran actor Shri A.K.Hangal was present and delivered a speech about importance of non violence & shared his experiences during freedom movement of India.

Mr. Hangal was given a warm apologue for recent announcement of honoring him with title” “Padmavibhushan”.

The opening documentary “Weapons of Mass Deception” directed by Danny Schechter, received good response from audience.

About the film:
Weapons of Mass Deception:duration of the film 98 mins

Think You Can Trust The Media? Think Again. There were two wars going on in Iraq - one was fought with armies of soldiers, bombs and a fearsome military force. The other was fought alongside it with cameras, satellites, armies of journalists and propaganda techniques. One war was rationalized as an effort to find and disarm WMDs - Weapons of Mass Destruction; the other was carried out by even more powerful WMDs, Weapons of Mass Deception.

The TV networks in America considered their non‑stop coverage their finest hour, pointing to the use of embedded journalists and new technologies that permitted viewers to see a war up close for the first time. But different countries saw different wars.....

The film is not just a coverage of the war in Iraq but also an attempt, to scrutinize and challenge it. Together, this unique multimedia “package” adds ammunition to the media war. It is a fight against the ongoing deceptive coverage of the Iraq War. When News Lies is an appeal for a broader engagement with media as an issue. The documentary is a journalist’s cry for truth and media responsibility."

"In these times of corporate-controlled media, the job of monitoring what the public is being fed in terms of news has become more critical than ever. A one-man watchdog of our corporate media has consistently highlighted the importance of his ongoing job of working to keep the corporate media in check. While he was working each day to provide the facts about the “news” that corporate media outlets were streaming into the homes of Americans, selling “product: war” in the market to make money!


about the director: Danny Schechter is a man determined to shine a glaring spotlight onto the true situation regarding the early 21st century deployment of military forces in Iraq. A fastidious consumer of the news, Schechter spent countless hours documenting the media coverage of the war, initially publishing his ideas on www.mediachannel.org and subsequently writing a book entitled EMBEDDED: WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION. The next logical step was to make a movie, so Schechter picked up a camera, and focused a lens full of scrutiny onto the media's portrayal of the war. Drawing on footage from Iraq to look at the disparity in presentation of the war compared to the actual events as they unfolded, Schechter weaves a masterful blanket of facts and figures, leading viewers to question the "facts" that have been presented to them through the major news agencies. Bold, brash, and informative, WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION is one man's crusade against the wrongdoings he believes the American media is foisting upon the general public.



Danny Schechter is a television producer and independent filmmaker who also writes and speaks about media issues. He is the author of "Falun Gong's Challenge to China" (Akashic Press), "The More You Watch, The Less You Know" (Seven Stories Press) and "News Dissector: Passions, Pieces and Polemics" (Electron Press). He is the executive editor of the MediaChannel.org, the world's largest online media issues network.



He has produced and directed many TV specials and films, including "Falun Gong's Challenge to China" (2000); A Hero for All: Nelson Mandela's Farewell (l999); Beyond Life: Timothy Leary Lives (1997); Sowing Seeds/Reeping Peace: The World of Seeds of Peace (1996); Prisoners of Hope (1995, co-directed by Barbara Kopple); Countdown to Freedom: Ten Days that Changed South Africa (1994), narrated by James Earl Jones and Alfre Woodard; Sarajevo Ground Zero (1993); The Living Canvas (1992), narrated by Billy Dee Williams; Beyond JFK: The Question of Conspiracy (1992, co-directed by Barbara Kopple); Give Peace a Chance (1991); Mandela in America (1990) The Making of Sun City (1987); and Student Power (1968).

Schechter is co-founder and executive producer of Globalvision, a New York-based television and film production company now in its 13th year, where he produced 156 editions of the award-winning series South Africa Now, co-produced Rights & Wrongs: Human Rights Television with Charlayne Hunter-Gault. His most recent human rights production, "Globalization and Human Rights was co-produced with Rory O'Connor and shown nationally on PBS.



A Cornell University graduate, he received his Master's degree from the London School of Economics, and an honorary doctorate from Fitchburg College. He was a Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard, where he also taught in 1969. After college, he was a full time civil rights worker and then communications director of the Northern Student Movement, worked as a community organizer in a Saul Alinsky-style War on Poverty program, and, moving from the streets to the suites, served as an assistant to the Mayor of Detroit in 1966 on a Ford Foundation grant

Schechter's professional journalism career began in 1970, when he was named news director, principal newscaster, and "News Dissector" at WBCN-FM in Boston, where he was hailed as a radio innovator and won many industry honors, including two Major Armstrong Awards. His television producing career was launched with the syndicated Joe Oteri Show, which won the New England Emmy and a NAPTE IRIS award in 1979. In l980, he created and produced the nation's first live late-night entertainment-oriented TV show, Five All Night, Live All Night at WCVB in Boston.

Schechter left Boston to join the staff at CNN as a producer based in Atlanta. He then moved to ABC as a producer for 20/20, where during his eight years he won two National News Emmys. Schechter has reported from 47 countries and lectured at many schools and universities. He was an adjunct rofessor at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. Schechter's writing has appeared in leading newspapers and magazines including the The Nation, Newsday, Boston Globe, Columbia Journalism Review, Media Studies Journal, Detroit Free Press, Village Voice, Tikkun, Z, and many others. He has a 25-year-old daughter, and lives in New York City in a large loft with an eight-thousand-album record collection, and an Apple computer that is nearly out of memory.

Report by Rajendra Joshi