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Intellect

Russia, Georgia and Ossetia topic of BYU lecture Sept. 24

Featuring documentary filmmaker Dodge Billingsley

Award-winning documentary filmmaker Dodge Billingsley will present “Ossetia in Perspective: Georgia Plays Russian Roulette” at a Global Awareness Lecture Wednesday, Sept. 24, at noon in 238 Herald R. Clark Building at Brigham Young University.

Billingsley, who recently returned from the Caucasus region, began covering war in 1993, eventually founding Combat Films and Research in 1997. In 2002, his film “House of War” documented the battle for Qala Jangi fortress in Afghanistan where he was one of a few foreigners on hand at the prisoner revolt that took the life of CIA agent Mike Spann. He is currently co-writing a book and documentary on the operation commissioned by the U.S. Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office.

He also co-wrote, produced and directed “Immortal Fortress: A Look Inside Chechnya’s Warrior Culture,” a film that took him into the war-torn breakaway region of Chechnya to document the insurgent perspective. Billingsley has also produced programs for the Discovery and History Channels.

Billingsley received 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 online at kennedy.byu.edu.

Writer: Brady Toone

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