The Panama Deception
- July 31, 1992 (1992-07-31)
The Panama Deception is a 1992 American documentary film, critical of the 1989 United States invasion of Panama.[1]
The film was directed by Barbara Trent, written and edited by David Kasper, and narrated by actress Elizabeth Montgomery. It was a production of the Empowerment Project, and won the 1992 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Summary
The film recounts the events which led to the invasion, the death and destruction caused by the invasion, and the aftermath. The film is critical of the actions of the United States Armed Forces. It also highlights the media bias within the United States, showing events that were unreported or systematically misreported, including downplaying of the number of civilian casualties.[2] The film also argued that the true purpose of the invasion was to prevent the then-scheduled retrocession of the Panama Canal Zone to Panama as agreed in the Torrijos–Carter Treaties, rather than the stated justification of removing Manuel Noriega from power due to his indictment in U.S. courts on racketeering and drugs trafficking charges. Panama ultimately gained full control over the Canal Zone on December 31, 1999, fulfilling the terms of the Torrijos-Carter agreements.
The film states that the U.S. government invaded Panama in order to destroy the PDF, the Panama Defense Forces, which were perceived as a threat to U.S. control over Panama, and install a government which would be friendly to U.S. interests. The film includes footage of what are claimed to be mass graves uncovered after the American troops had withdrawn and footage of burned-down neighborhoods, refers to the alleged use of experimental weapons including supposed secret laser weapons, and presents depictions of some of the 20,000 refugees who fled the fighting.
Production
The documentary was completed on a $300,000 budget provided by funding from Channel 4, Rhino Entertainment, J. Roderick MacArthur Foundation, the Rex Foundation, the Peace Development Fund, the National Council of Churches, the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, the Vanguard Public Foundation, Michael Moore, and other donors.[3]
The film was banned in Panama, and in the United States the Public Broadcasting Service banned it from being broadcast. Several individual PBS member stations such as WNYC-TV, WGBH-TV, and KQED-TV defied the ban to broadcast it anyway.[3]
See also
References
- ^ "NY Times: The Panama Deception". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. 2009. Archived from the original on 2009-02-01. Retrieved 2008-11-19.
- ^ "The Empowerment Project::The Panama Deception". www.empowermentproject.org. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
- ^ a b "The Panama Deception". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved 2022-02-17.
External links
- The Panama Deception at the Empowerment Project
- Watch The Panama Deception at the C-SPAN Video Library
- The Panama Deception at IMDb
- The Panama Deception at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Panama Deception at Box Office Mojo
- The Panama Deception at AllMovie
- v
- t
- e
- The Battle of Midway / Kokoda Front Line! / Moscow Strikes Back / Prelude to War (1942)
- Desert Victory (1943)
- The Fighting Lady (1944)
- The True Glory (1945)
- No Award (1946)
- Design for Death (1947)
- The Secret Land (1948)
- Daybreak in Udi (1949)
- The Titan: Story of Michelangelo (1950)
- Kon-Tiki (1951)
- The Sea Around Us (1952)
- The Living Desert (1953)
- The Vanishing Prairie (1954)
- Helen Keller in Her Story (1955)
- The Silent World (1956)
- Albert Schweitzer (1957)
- White Wilderness (1958)
- Serengeti Shall Not Die (1959)
- The Horse with the Flying Tail (1960)
- Sky Above and Mud Beneath (1961)
- Black Fox: The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler (1962)
- Robert Frost: A Lover's Quarrel with the World (1963)
- World Without Sun (1964)
- The Eleanor Roosevelt Story (1965)
- The War Game (1966)
- The Anderson Platoon (1967)
- Journey into Self (1968)
- Arthur Rubinstein – The Love of Life (1969)
- Woodstock (1970)
- The Hellstrom Chronicle (1971)
- Marjoe (1972)
- The Great American Cowboy (1973)
- Hearts and Minds (1974)
- The Man Who Skied Down Everest (1975)
- Harlan County, USA (1976)
- Who Are the DeBolts? And Where Did They Get Nineteen Kids? (1977)
- Scared Straight! (1978)
- Best Boy (1979)
- From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China (1980)
- Genocide (1981)
- Just Another Missing Kid (1982)
- He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin' (1983)
- The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)
- Broken Rainbow (1985)
- Artie Shaw: Time Is All You've Got / Down and Out in America (1986)
- The Ten-Year Lunch (1987)
- Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie (1988)
- Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (1989)
- American Dream (1990)
- In the Shadow of the Stars (1991)
- The Panama Deception (1992)
- I Am a Promise: The Children of Stanton Elementary School (1993)
- Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision (1994)
- Anne Frank Remembered (1995)
- When We Were Kings (1996)
- The Long Way Home (1997)
- The Last Days (1998)
- One Day in September (1999)
- Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport (2000)
- Murder on a Sunday Morning (2001)
- Bowling for Columbine (2002)
- The Fog of War (2003)
- Born into Brothels (2004)
- March of the Penguins (2005)
- An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
- Taxi to the Dark Side (2007)
- Man on Wire (2008)
- The Cove (2009)
- Inside Job (2010)
- Undefeated (2011)
- Searching for Sugar Man (2012)
- 20 Feet from Stardom (2013)
- Citizenfour (2014)
- Amy (2015)
- O.J.: Made in America (2016)
- Icarus (2017)
- Free Solo (2018)
- American Factory (2019)
- My Octopus Teacher (2020)
- Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (2021)
- Navalny (2022)
- 20 Days in Mariupol (2023)
This article about a war documentary film is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
- v
- t
- e