Robert’s admiration of the rebellious Abbie Hoffman is the one indication that a smiley, five-foot-six Hollywood producer would end up challenging the national security establishment of the United States. On the heels of America’s March 20, 2003 invasion of Iraq, Robert rush-produced his first documentary film, Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War. The sixty-minute film was sharply critical of President Bush and senior members of his administration.

The genesis of Robert’s opposition to the Iraq War was a presentation by former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter that Robert attended in the fall of 2002. What started as an e-mail message from Robert to some of his friends in film and television quickly grew into Artists United to Win Without War, a group Robert co-founded with actor Mike Farrell.

On December 15, 2002, Artists United ran a full-page anti-war advertisement in the New York Times, signed by over one hundred actors and musicians including Martin Sheen, Matt Damon, Ethan Hawke, Samuel L. Jackson, and Dave Matthews. Written as an open letter, the ad concluded with a statement that was virtually the opposite of the Bush administration position: “The valid US and UN objective of disarming Saddam Hussein can be achieved through legal diplomatic means. There is no need for war. Let us instead devote our resources to improving the security and well-being of people here at home and around the world.”

Although Robert had been active in various Los Angeles area nonprofits, he had never before gotten involved in a leadership role on national political issues. As he and Farrell coordinated the activities of Artists United with the efforts of other anti-war groups, Robert started to meet a variety of politicians, organizers, and activists far outside the world of entertainment.

One of the organizations supporting the Times ad was MoveOn.org, an online activist group that had been pressing the Bush administration to “Let the Inspections Work” since July 2002. Robert got to know MoveOn founder Wes Boyd during a series of conference calls to coordinate the “Win Without War” coalition, which encompassed a broad range of organizations including the Sierra Club, the NAACP, Greenpeace, Rainbow/Push, and several faith-based groups. The relationship forged between Robert and Wes during this pre-war period would become a crucial part of Robert’s subsequent efforts.

The idea for Uncovered was born three months into the US led invasion of Iraq, when Robert noticed a subtle yet significant change in the Bush administration’s statements about Saddam Hussein. Instead of talking about Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, government officials had begun to use the words “weapons programs.” To Robert, this shift in verbiage was a signal that, although President Bush had already declared “mission
accomplished,” no actual weapons of mass destruction were likely to be found in Iraq by the American search teams.

At the same time, Robert began reading about former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who told the New York Times that the intelligence community was “totally demoralized.” McGovern was a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group that called the invasion of Iraq a “policy and intelligence fiasco of monumental proportions.” Robert thought McGovern’s group could be a source for credible experts for a documentary film about the run-up to the Iraq war.

Without a formal budget or distribution plan, Robert began directing his first documentary in July 2003. The small initial team included co-producers Kate McArdle and Jim Gilliam and editor Chris Gordon. (Kate worked with Robert on Artists United, Uncovered, and Outfoxed. The Retail Project marks the third consecutive Robert Greenwald project for Jim and Chris.)

Constructed with the sequential logic of a geometry proof, Robert’s script outline paired public statements by George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice with point-by-point rebuttals from McGovern, Ritter, and a growing panel of retired intelligence and foreign policy professionals. A local crew videotaped most of the experts in hotel rooms in Washington, DC, with Robert asking the questions either in person or from Culver City via speakerphone.

What started as an informal, small-scale effort became increasingly complex and expensive, and soon Robert realized he would need outside funding in order to complete the project. Reaching out to his new friend Wes Boyd, Robert asked if MoveOn.org would be willing to contribute fifty thousand dollars towards the production costs and become an official “presenter” of the movie. Wes agreed, and urged Robert to finish the film as quickly as possible.

Shortly thereafter, Robert contacted former Clinton administration chief-of-staff John Podesta, who was in the process of starting up a new think tank called the Center for American Progress. Robert offered Podesta the opportunity to become another official presenter of the film, and Podesta accepted. Beyond providing completion funding for the movie, the Center for American Progress became an important conduit to the “inside the beltway” public policy establishment.

At the onset of these new relationships, Robert did not have a specific plan for precisely how MoveOn and the Center for American Progress would help his film find an audience. Yet Robert already knew that the traditional entertainment distribution pattern would not be effective for Uncovered. First and foremost, Robert’s goal was to get his message out as quickly as possible, hoping to influence public perception of a fast-moving issue. The typical route of submitting the documentary to film festivals and waiting for an answer would be far too slow for this project. Even if a high-profile festival premiere could be obtained, it offered no guarantee that a film distribution company would take notice and agree to release Robert’s documentary in theaters.

In fact, the controversial nature of his subject matter made Robert skeptical that film distributors and theater owners would be willing to touch it. Accusing the President of the United States of being dishonest with the American people is not exactly a way to win friends and influence people in the increasingly corporate world of movie distribution. Having seen the power of MoveOn to generate a million signatures for an anti-war petition back in March, Robert had a feeling that MoveOn could create a rapid and unusual campaign to connect his film to a politically-activated audience. At the same time, the Center for American Progress could build a buzz among politicians, foreign policy specialists, and other Washington insiders.

Uncovered made its debut on November 3, 2003, at a time when the mainstream media was still solidly in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The first public screenings of Uncovered were organized by the Center for American Progress, taking place in Washington on November 3, New York on November 4, and Los Angeles on November 11.

Receiving little press coverage, Uncovered could have been a political non-event. Yet the innovative campaign Robert and Wes designed for MoveOn.org was wildly successful. On the same day as the Washington, DC world premiere screening, the MoveOn website began offering the Uncovered DVD as a premium to members who pledged thirty dollars or more. Response to MoveOn’s November 3 e-mail blast was immediate and overwhelming, generating 8,000 individual pledges within the first three hours. Three days later, the total number of pledges exceeded 20,000, and by the end of November, MoveOn had distributed nearly 30,000 Uncovered DVDs, raising almost one million dollars to be used in MoveOn’s future campaigns against the Iraq war.

The Nation magazine and two internet news portals, Alternet and Buzzflash, also offered the DVD for sale on their websites during the same time period, broadening the reach of the initial campaign. In addition, Alternet brought the film to their home base of San Francisco, sponsoring a screening on November 19.

As fall turned to winter, the Uncovered DVD became a talisman of sorts for Americans who felt lied to by their president. The structured critique offered by Robert’s experts was a concise and memorable alternative to the Bush war narrative. As DVDs were passed from person to person, so was Robert’s message. Sharing the film with a friend or co-worker became a small act of protest against the war.

It soon became clear that MoveOn members and readers of The Nation, Alternet and Buzzflash were just the tip of the iceberg of the potential audience for a serious and thoughtful anti-war film. As public awareness grew, an opportunity arose to add a conventional distribution channel into the mix. The Disinformation Company, an independent publisher best known for edgy nonfiction books, made a deal with Robert to commercially release the Uncovered DVD in retail stores and on Amazon.com.

Meanwhile, the MoveOn team decided to create a second phase of their Uncovered campaign. Staffer Eli Pariser came up with the idea of encouraging MoveOn members to host Uncovered “house parties” to show the movie to their friends and co-workers. Hoping to generate a few hundred screenings, MoveOn sent out an e-mail solicitation inviting members to sign up to host screenings on the first Sunday in December. Exceeding all expectations, over 2,600 members hosted screenings in their homes and at community venues, creating a nationwide exhibition of Robert’s movie on a single night, December 7. Without being advertised in newspapers or exhibited in conventional movie theaters, Uncovered had found a new way to be seen in cities and towns across the country.

Two months later, the political environment changed rapidly when US weapons inspector David Kay resigned. Summarizing his nine months of experience searching postwar Iraq for signs of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons, Kay told National Public Radio that “based on what I’ve seen, we’re very unlikely to find large stockpiles of weapons. I don’t think they exist.” The mainstream media gradually rediscovered their collective backbone and began to revisit the issues Greenwald’s film had raised in October 2003. (Greenwald later interviewed David Kay on camera for an expanded 2004 version of Uncovered.)

On May 24, 2004, the New York Times published an extraordinary editorial lamenting the paper’s timid and unquestioning coverage of the Bush administration’s pre-war claims. “Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in reexamining the claims as new evidence emerged—or failed to emerge,” lamented the editorial board. Out on a limb in the fall of 2003, Robert and his experts were now vindicated by the “Newspaper of Record.” Beyond the impact of his political message, Robert’s innovative “alternative distribution” methods had created a powerful new template to connect timely documentaries with a passionate audience.

1. Confronting the President
2. Refining the Model
3. Working with Nonprofits and Political Groups
4. Reaching Out to Organizations