A new documentary short investigating the personal experiences of a soldier involved in the 2007 events shown in the Wikileaks film Collateral Murder is premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 24.

Incident in New Baghdad, directed by Academy-Award winning James Spione (for his student film Prelude), is about the experiences of Ethan McCord, a US Army veteran who has been outspoken about his involvement in the events chronicled in the Collateral Murder film. McCord was one of the first soldiers to arrive on the scene immediately after a helicopter attack that killed ten people, including eight Iraqi civilians and two journalists employed by the Reuters news agency. Spione may be known best for his film Garden, which starred actors Melissa Leo and Matt Malloy. Incident in New Baghdad features pictures taken by McCord while serving in Iraq.

McCord saved two children wounded in the incident, but their father died trying to save the other Iraqi civilians. When his mental health support request from the Army was denied after the horrific event, he began a journey towards a life of activism. McCord now speaks to people about his war experiences in an effort to counter the military culture that McCord said recently instructs soldiers

“from the first day of basic training to kill, kill, kill. You know, what makes the green grass grow? Blood, blood, blood. That’s what’s pressed into you.”

McCord has become active in the veteran groups Courage to Resist and We Are Not Your Soldiers, and is vehement in his support of PFC Bradley Manning, the alleged leaker of the video used in the Wikileaks film. The whistleblower’s actions mirrored actions McCord himself took, when McCord began recording members of his unit, Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry; the same unit implicated in the civilian shootings chronicled in the Wikileaks film. In a recent Wikileaks interview, he said, “everybody deserves to see what happens in a war.”

McCord sent pictures and video of members of his unit berating Iraqi detainees to the website of filmmaker and activist Michael Moore in an effort to make it clear that the event recorded in the video was not an isolated act. He feels strongly that Bradley Manning should not be charged for leaking the video, if responsible, because the events chronicled in it were already made public in 2009.

. . .lets take a look at this WikiLeaks video for just one second here. The video was released on April 5th of 2010. However, the entire incident was written about in a book by David Finkel called The Good Soldiers. So, they’re stating that this was classified, but it was already released back in 2009 through a book so how is it classified if it’s already for released? I mean, word for word this video is described in the book The Good Soldiers so yet we’re going to charge Bradley Manning for releasing classified information. Shouldn’t we also be charging David Finkel for writing this book detailing the entire engagement in his book in 2009? I think that this incident was unclassified as soon as it was written about and put in this book in 2009.

Incident in New Baghdad will be screening at the Tribeca Film Festival starting Sunday, April 24 at 3 pm Eastern, at the AMC Loews Village, 66 Third Avenue at 11th Street, New York City. For more information about the film and to buy tickets, visit the film’s page at the Tribeca Film Festival’s website.

For More Information:

• Incident in New Baghdad website
• Ethan McCord’s interview with This Week in Wikileaks (audio and transcript)
• Tribeca Film Festival
• Courage to Resist
• We Are Not Your Soldiers
• Panorama (German) documentary featuring Ethan McCord, in English
• David Finkel, The Good Soldiers (US Publisher)
• Watch James Spione speak about why he made the film to an audience at New York City’s Revolution Books on April 21