Haliburton may be the shining example of an out of control arms industry, where the profit is billions of dollars and the loss is human lives. In Shadow World, based upon the 2011 book by Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade, there are other weapons manufacturers, world leaders, arms dealers, military leaders, and behind-the-scenes movers that come under director Johan Grimonprez's (Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y) scrutiny in an eye-popping assemblage of news and archival footage. Accompanying the images are comments from Feinstein, a slippery arms dealer, former New York Times writer Chris Hedges, and New Yorker investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, retired US Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, and other once-willing participants in the business who decided to speak out. Grimonprez spares no one to expose a shadow world of corruption, slush funds, drones, illicit bed partners, and a whole lot of lies and greed from the early 80s up to the present. The aim is to perpetuate war in order to generate more cash, no matter what the expense.

—Brian Gordon

Directed by

Johan Grimonprez