Courting Condi
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| Courting Condi | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Sebastian Doggart |
| Produced by | Sebastian Doggart, Jennifer Latham |
| Written by | Sebastian Doggart |
| Starring | Devin Ratray, Adrian Grenier, Condoleezza Rice, Frank Luntz, Carol Connors, George W. Bush, Lawrence Wilkerson |
| Music by | Alexandra Gordon, Kerry Shaw, Carol Connors, Devin Ratray, Sebastian Doggart, |
| Cinematography | Matthew Woolf |
| Editing by | Dan Madden, Tom Lindsay, Diana Decilio |
| Release date(s) | July 30 2008 |
| Language | English |
Courting Condi is a movie by British filmmaker Sebastian Doggart that paints an impactful portrait of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by following the quest of one love-struck soul, Devin Ratray, to win her heart. Ratray is a musician and besotted admirer of Condi who travels across America, learning more about Rice from those who knew her. He speaks to her childhood friends in Birmingham, Alabama, meets her teachers and performs at Red Rocks in Denver, Colorado [1]; follows her rise to Provost of Stanford University in California, where he also discovers how she reversed affirmative action programs. In Los Angeles, he is given courtship advice by his friend Adrian Grenier, and presented with a power ballad to send to Condi from Oscar nominated songwriter Carol Connors. When he arrives in Washington DC, he is assisted by Republican strategist Frank Luntz, and counseled by Newsweek editor Eleanor Clift.
He also learns how, after failing to respond competently to warnings of an Al Qaeda attack on American soil, she made a Faustian pact to sacrifice her principles for power. Through noted contributors such as Colin Powell's Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson, Watergate and 9/11 Commission investigator Richard Ben-Veniste and Congressman David Price, Devin learns how Rice abandoned her position as a realist on international relations and turned into an idealist neo-Condi. He finds out how she misled the 9/11 Commission, failed to prosecute the killers in the 2007 Blackwater Baghdad shootings, even though they were in her employ; and finally selected and authorized torture techniques. [2]
The film is the first ever musical docu-tragicomedy in the history of cinema, and innovatively combines interviews, archive footage, animated stills, dramatizations and original songs. [3]
A promo of the film screened at the IFC Center in New York City in April 2007, [4] and led to Discovery Communications providing $150,000 financing for the film. In February 2008, Channel 4 in the UK provided further financing for the film. [5] The film is scheduled for general international release in August 2008, coinciding with the build-up to the 2008 presidential elections, and for transmission on Channel 4 in October 2008. [6]
