The List

Kirk Johnson fights to save thousands of Iraqis whose lives are in danger because they worked for the United States to help rebuild Iraq.

Film Signature Image
Series
Global Voices
Premiere Date
September 8, 2013
Length
60 minutes
Funding Initiative
Open Call
Producer/Director

Beth Murphy

Beth Murphy is founder of Principle Pictures, a company focused on creating documentary films, impact campaigns, and news reports about pressing human rights issues globally. She has directed and produced nearly 20 films (Sundance Channel, PBS, History Channel, Lifetime, Discovery Networks), including the feature documentaries Beyond Belief and The List, Show more which focused on the human consequences of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Those films premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and went on to win awards on the festival circuit. Murphy is a blogger for Huffington Post and a Correspondent/Producer for GlobalPost Special Reports. As an Adjunct Professor at Suffolk University and a Visiting Professor at American University Paris, Murphy has taught courses in covering international crises, the business of international news, media ethics, and documentary filmmaking. Currently as a fellow at Boston University and Visiting Scholar at Iraq’s Basra University, Murphy is researching film art in post-war Iraq and developing an academic program on Cultural Diplomacy Through Filmmaking. Show less

Other ITVS Films
What Tomorrow Brings
Producer

Sean Flynn

Sean Flynn is a Boston-based documentary producer, cinematographer, and programmer. He is the Director of the Points North Documentary Forum at Camden International Film Festival and a co-founder of the DocYard screening series. In 2012, Sean spent four months in India as a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Scholar. He is currently a master’s candidate Show more and research assistant at the MIT Open Documentary Lab. Sean began his filmmaking career at Boston-based Principle Pictures as Associate Producer and Co-Director of Photography on the feature documentary Beyond Belief, which premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival and aired on Sundance Channel. Show less

We fund untold stories for public media.

Learn more about funding opportunities with ITVS.

The Film

After leading reconstruction teams in Iraq for two years, 26-year-old Kirk Johnson returns home to discover that many of his former Iraqi colleagues are being killed, kidnapped, or forced into exile by radical militias. Frustrated by a stagnating government bureaucracy that has failed to protect these people, he begins compiling a list of Iraqi allies and helps them find refuge and a new life in America. The List traces the evolution of Kirk's campaign from a one-man crusade into a nationwide grassroots movement.

Topics