Eric Stover is director of the Human Rights Center and adjunct professor of public health at UC Berkeley.

Shot during the months leading up to the 2005 elections in Iraq, this insightful work by accomplished documentary filmmaker (and former PFA intern) Laura Poitras has been widely acclaimed as the most important film yet made about the U.S. occupation. Focusing on the experiences of one man, a Sunni doctor running for political office, Poitras offers a nuanced and closely observed portrayal of a nation anticipating the arrival of “Western-style democracy” with a mixture of fear, hope, anger, and bemused resignation. Michael Atkinson wrote in The Village Voice: “as a counterpoint to acres of the usual corporate-spun, power-tweaked non-news, it is indispensable, heartbreaking, and ferociously wise. Time and again, Poitras manages to be where platoons of U.S. telejournalists were afraid to go.” “Laura Poitras has seen deeper into the tragedy of Iraq than any other filmmaker,” The New Yorker's George Packer declared. “It is hard to imagine there will be a better film about this war.”

• Photographed by Poitras. (90 mins, Color, 35mm, From Zeitgeist)