Martin Adler

2004 Winner of the Rory Peck Award for Hard News

Swedish

Shot in Iraq, November-December 2003
Martin Adler Media supported by Channel 4 News Independents' Fund

“On Patrol with Charlie Company- Ivy Blizzard”
A shocking observational account of the US Army's modus operandi in Samarra, Iraq in late November 2003. Martin Adler was with Charlie Company whose base was on Highway One, just south of Samarra, in the heart of the Sunni Triangle. Their mission: to secure the highway, now considered to be the most dangerous stretch of road in the world, and combat the insurgency, which had broken out in the area. Most of the men had been in the country for seven or eight months and were showing signs of fatigue and stress.

"This is the best embedded piece I have seen from Iraq. He shot it, voiced it, edited it: it genuinly was his creation. It spoke volumes about the situation in Iraq. Incredibly prescient."
Judge's Comment

Biography
Martin Adler was born in Stockholm of Anglo-Swedish parents. As a freelance cameraman of long experience, Martin has worked in over two dozen war zones, including El Salvador, Peru, Rwanda, Congo, Angola, Sierra leone, Liberia, Chechnya, Abchazia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Burundi. Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea and Iraq.
In 2001, he won the Amnesty International Media Award (news category) for his story on the kidnapping and sale of women in China. At the 2001 New York TV Festival, he was awarded the Silver Prize for Investigative Journalism. Martin was murdered in Somalia on the 23rd of June 2006.  


"The strategy I adopted when commuting between Baghdad and Charlie company was to go native. A red-and-white checkered keffiyeu head-dress and the sort of khaki combat jacket worn by locals was the type of apparel not too likely to attract much attention here, at least not from the resistance...Back in Baghdad you were constantly aware of being a potential target, and all too visible. So, despite the obvious dangers, posing as a local sheik along Highway One was almost a satisfying experience, rather like snapping ones fingers and disappearing."
Cameraman's Comments