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Chechen insurgency topic for David M. Kennedy Center lecture June 25

Documentary film producer Dodge Billingsley will visit Brigham Young University to present “Tactical Shifts in the Chechen Insurgency: Yes, There is Still a War Going On” on Wednesday, June 25, at noon in 238 Herald R. Clark Building

Billingsley is a documentary film producer and director who began covering war in 1993, eventually founding Combat Films and Research in 1997. He has since spent much of his time documenting numerous global hotspots including Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Western China and Iraq, splitting his time among producing documentaries, writing and lecturing.

In 2002, his film “House of War” won the Rory Peck award and the Royal Television Society award for Best Feature. The film documents the battle for Qala Jangi fortress in Afghanistan, where Billingsley was one of only a few foreigners on hand at the prisoner revolt that took the life of CIA agent Mike Spann.

Beyond the Border, a series of six films he produced for BYU’s David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies, can be viewed online at beyondtheborder.org. Billingsley has also produced numerous programs for the Discovery Channel and History Channel.

A frequent contributor to various defense and security-related journals, Billingsley is currently co-writing a book and documentary on the operation commissioned by the U.S. Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Columbia University and a master’s degree in war studies from King’s College Department of War Studies in London.

This lecture will be archived online. For more information on David M. Kennedy Center events, see the calendar at kennedy.byu.edu.

Writer: Lee Simons

billingsley-on-the-web.jpg
Photo by Kenny Crookston/BYU Photo

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