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IndieWIRE has a great interview up with the directors of Baghdad High. Ivan O’Mahoney and Laura Winter’s film follows the lives of high school students in Iraq - O’Mahoney and Winter actually gave students small digital cameras so they could document their lives - pretty cool!

The result is a film that shows how remarkably similar these teenagers’ lives are compared to those in the Western world. indieWIRE talked to both filmmakers about the film and their expectations for its North American Premiere at Tribeca.

What was the inspiration for “Baghdad High?”

We both had worked in Iraq and were looking to avoid yet another Iraq film told through the eyes of soldiers, religious leaders and warlords. The idea was that if you want to do something about the future of Iraq, you should talk to the future…i.e. go straight to its teenagers. Everyone can sympathize with the troubles and triumphs of being a teenager. It’s just that these teens happened to be growing into men in a war zone. [indieWIRE]

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HBO has announced their summer documentary program line-up. The season will kick off on June 9th with the new documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, based on Roman Polanski and the statutory-rape case against him.

Also on board is a new doc on Heidi Fleiss, one about high school teens in Iraq called Baghdad High and one that focuses on Bush’s No Child Left Behind act.

There are a lot of great docs on the schedule including Section 60: Arlington National Cemetery.

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