Shadow World
Revealing the shocking realities of the global arms trade which profits in the billions and destroys lives.
Basing his tale on Andrew Feinstein’s acclaimed 2011 book The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade, filmmaker and artist Johan Grimonprez scrutinizes an international enterprise that counts its profits in billions and its losses in human lives. The film travels to London, Saudi Arabia, Washington, D.C., and other far-flung locales to interview inside players and deeply knowledgeable observers, including Feinstein himself, investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill, weapons dealer Riccardo Privitera, and Saudi prince Bandar bin Sultan, whose résumé of arms transactions dates back to the Reagan-Thatcher era. The weapons trade, Shadow World argues, operates in a parallel legal universe — fostering corruption, determining economic and foreign policy, undermining democracy, and creating widespread suffering. Who is complicit? Just about everyone — not only arms manufacturers and dealers, but also governments and intelligence agencies, investigative and prosecutorial bodies, banks, and the media. Shedding light on the arms trade’s relentless expansion, Shadow World asks audiences to see past this horror, in the hope of creating a better future.