Alfred Hitchcock was reputed to have said, “In feature films the director is God; in documentary films God is the director.” While this enigmatic statement can be read and interpreted several different ways, one thing’s for certain: implicit is the idea that documentary filmmaking is powerful, heady stuff. It can, and has, been used to instruct and inform and – regrettably – propagandize and confuse. Generally, it’s left up to the viewer to decide if what they’re seeing is of the first or second variety.

And so it is for a viewer who happens upon an alarming film called Iranium, a 60-minute window into the very real threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. Released by the Clarion fund and directed by Alex Traiman, the film is at once gritty, brutal, terrifying and hopeful. And most importantly, if the professional and political pedigrees of those interviewed in the film are any indication, frighteningly true.

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Traiman, a journalist living in Israel and covering the Middle East, says he became fully aware of the threat of a nuclear armed Iran after attending a 4 day conference that focused on the subject in Israel in 2009. “So I started reading,” he says.  “After reading ‘The Rise of Nuclear Iran’ by Dore Gold and ‘Persian Night’ by Amir Taheri, I realized that there were several components that most Westerners did not know about the threat: There is a deep ideology guiding Iran’s leaders since 1979; there is a 30 year history of killing Americans that continues today; and that Western leaders have repeatedly misread the intentions of Iran’s leaders.”

In fact, Traiman adds, Westerners have a tendency to misunderstand the true nature of the threat because we insist on filtering the events in the Middle East, from the Iranian Revolution in 1979 to the events occurring today in Egypt and Libya, through a decidedly Western value system.

“There is most certainly a huge disconnect between the nature of these oppressive regimes and how they are viewed in the West,” Traiman says. “We view events in the Muslim world, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, through a prism of values that is uniquely American.  But those nations across the world have a completely different system of values that were established long before America ever became a nation.”

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A missile is fired from the a distant nation, heading for your city; in only 33 minutes or less, that missile will find its target.  Such is the premise of the Heritage Foundation’s aptly named documentary, “33 Minutes.”  The film covers the history missile defense and more importantly discusses the nuclear threats that face our nation today.

With the news of Iran’s nuclear research being more widespread than previously thought, as well as the Obama administration’s retreat on the missile defense system; a documentary like “33 minutes” is more timely than ever.  Too often, Americans think of nuclear threats in the abstract, and this film does much to move the hard truths of the current state of our defense into the concrete.  Featuring interviews with numerous political luminaries such as Ronald Reagan’s Attorney General from 1985-1988, Ed Meese III, and the Iron Lady herself, Margaret Thatcher, the film will leave you understanding why missile defense is arguably the most important issue facing our nation today. (more…)