Human Terrain: War Becomes Academic

Human Terrain War Becomes Academic is a 2010 documentary film about the US Armys Human Terrain System HTS, written and directed by James Der Derian, David Udris and Michael Udris. The film examines the history of the HTS program, the public controversy surrounding HTS, and the story of one academics Michael V. Bhatias involvement in the program.

Human Terrain features interviews with key HTS personnel including HTSs former Senior Social Scientist, Montgomery McFate and the former director of HTS, Steve Fondacaro and with some of the most wellknown critics of the HTS program, including Roberto J. Gonzalez and Hugh Gusterson.Human Terrain started out as a research project for the Cultural Awareness and the Military Project at the Watson Institute for International Studies. In 2005, Der Derian visited the March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, California, where he observed US Marine staff taking part in cultural sensitivity exercises. Shortly afterwards, he began working on a documentary film about the increasing prioritization of cultural knowledge in US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan with David and Michael Udris. Der Derian and the Udris brothers began filming in 2006, when they embedded themselves in the 1st Battalion 25th Marines at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms in order to film and observe the Mojave Viper training program, which takes place at a simulation Iraqi village in the Mojave desert. After learning of the death of Michael Bhatia who had previously worked with Der Derian at Brown University on May 7, 2008, the directors decided to make HTS and Bhatia the main focus of their film. They visited Bhatias mother, who gave them permission to use Bhatias field notes, journals, photographs and audio files that he had recorded in the field. In the autumn of 2009, The filmmakers subsequently visited the Training Base for HTS at Fort Leavenworth where they interviewed key members of the HTS program. ........

Source: Wikipedia