Filmmaker, Combat Films & Research
“The Challenges of Documenting War”
Independent filmmaker Dodge Billingsley returned back to New York to explore the challenges of documenting war in a retrospective discussion, touching his work in Chechnya, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Caucasus, and other conflict regions. The event, held at the Lincoln Center Building, was hosted in partnership with the LDS Professionals Association and coordinated by Kennedy Center alum Paul Dozier.
Dodge Billingsley began covering war in 1993, eventually founding Combat Films and Research in 1997. Billingsley has since spent much of his time documenting numerous global hotspots, splitting his time between producing documentaries, writing, and lecturing. He currently produces the Beyond the Border series of films of international scope for the Kennedy Center. In 2003, he was a finalist for the prestigious Rory Peck award for Best Feature, for his film Virgin Soldiers, which follows a squad of Marines during OIF1. In 2002, Billingsley won the Rory Peck award and the Royal Television Society award for Best Feature, for House of War, which 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 was also among the few on the ground to document the U.S.-led Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan’s Shah i Kot Valley. He recently co-authored Coils of the Anaconda a book centered on that operation and the US war in Afghanistan, which is being published by University Press of Kansas. Since 2003, he has also been a member of the faculty at the Naval Post Graduate School’s LDESP program and briefs military units prior to their deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq. He is a recipient of a MacArthur Regional Security Travel Grant for his work in Abkhazia and has lectured on security-related issues for various military and academic institutions. He is a frequent contributor to various defense and security related journals, including Jane’s Intelligence Review. Billingsley received a BA in history from Columbia University and an MA in war studies from King’s College Department of War Studies in London.