Dodge Billingsley  American
Damien Degueldre    French
Finalists : The Rory Peck Award for Features

 "The House of War"
Shot: Mazar-i Sharif, Afghanistan,
         November 2001
Diverse Productions for
Channel 4 Television / CBS News

In November 2001, around 400 Taliban prisoners surrendered to General Abdur Rashid Dostum, a warlord fighting with the Northern Alliance. The prisoners, mainly foreign fighters that Dostum wanted handed over to the UN, were taken to Qala-I-Jhangi.

Dodge Billingsley and Damien Degueldre managed to get into the mud-walled fortress where they remained, covering the fighting until it was over. They captured some of the most dramatic and memorable moments of the battle: Dostum's men fall back, outnumbered by their prisoners; a Taliban prisoner blows himself up with a hand grenade; a CIA operative in a state of shock claims he has had to kill some of the attacking Talibans in order to escape; a US air strike goes very wrong and member of the Taliban turns out to be an American - John Walker Lindh.

"Almost as soon as we arrived, we were welcomed by a rocket crossing our path. Our first reflex was to hide behind a tree. Later we climbed the fortress walls to end up on the North-eastern tower with the Alliance fighters. We had just enough time to film the firing and get used to the environment before we were asked to leave. On our way out we met with the American special forces preparing an air strike on the fortress. The next day we spent the day in the fighting with the Alliance soldiers. They accepted us and we were able to film not only the combats but also the inside of the Southern compound."

Judges' Comments
"There is a terrible sense of tragedy of people trying
to do the right thing and it all going horribly wrong."
"It's stunning stuff. They followed it superbly as
cameramen. They didn't miss a shot."
"It shows the stupidity and reality of war. It doesn't
always come across that people make mistakes."

Biography
Dodge Billingsley is a freelance cameraman, producer and director. Since founding Combat Films in 1997 he has covered conflicts around the world, producing on location in the United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Republic of Georgia, Uzbekistan, Russia, Turkey, Bosnia, China, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Dodge is a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Regional Security Travel Grant and has written extensively for various defence and security related journals including regular contributions to Jane's Intelligence Review.

French cameraman and photojournalist, Damien Degueldre, has been freelance for the past two years. He has provided a range of films to both European and international broadcasters, including Channel 4 TV and Canal+. Damien has also filmed living conditions in the refugee camps for the BBC in Afghanistan.

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