A new type of warfare is exposed in Director Matthew Heineman’s documentary, City of Ghosts.
Heineman’s documentary goes behind enemy lines in Syria and follows the efforts of "Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently," a citizen journalist collective who banded together after their homeland was taken over by ISIS in 2014. They risk their lives as they attempt to expose the human rights violations by ISIS and fight the terrorist group's misinformation campaigns in a new battlefront over ideas and a fight for hearts and minds via clicks and views. City of Ghosts premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and will be released in theaters this July.
On July 6, Heineman is spoke about the making of City of Ghosts with Director Amy Berg (Janis: Little Girl Blue) following the Eastern Region Special Projects screening in New York. Heineman had previously dicussed the film in a conversation moderated by DGA Special Projects Documentary Series Subcommittee Chair Chuck Workman (Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles) following the DGA Special Projects Committee’s Documentary Series screening in the Guild's Los Angeles Theater on May 24.
In addition to City of Ghosts, Heineman’s filmography includes the documentary features Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare and Cartel Land, for which took home the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary. Cartel Land also won a Primetime Emmy Award for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking and was nominated for the Academy Award for "Best Documentary Feature." Heineman has been a DGA member since 2015.
You can listen to Heineman's Q&A by clicking the podcast episode embedded below. You can find all DGA podcast episodes here.