Frontline in Iraq, hunting al-Qaeda, an Australian war correspondent delivers a gripping, sometimes brutal document.

Australian journalist Michael Ware found himself launched into the Middle East after the seismic geopolitical upheaval of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Reporting for CNN and Time, he set his sights on ruthless insurrectionist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man who founded al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Constructed from seven years of reporting, and featuring harrowing first-person footage of combat, Ware's film not only captures the shocking rise of al-Zarqawi but how the war affects soldiers and civilians, states and individuals, revealing a darkness within us all.

Directed by Ware and two-time Academy Award-winning US documentarian Bill Guttentag, Only the Dead exposes the distressing realities of far-flung conflict, which is so often depicted as a sea of sand and infrared blips.

"We cannot shy away from what we do to our children when we send them to war or shy away from what is being done in our name." – Michael Ware

Michael Ware is a festival guest.