From Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama, from Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair, Shadow World reveals the shocking realities of the global arms trade, the only business that counts its profits in billions and its losses in human lives. Based on The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade, the acclaimed book by Andrew Feinstein, the film explores how governments, their militaries and intelligence agencies, defense contractors, arms dealers and agents are inextricably intertwined with the international trade in weapons, and how that trade fosters corruption, determines economic and foreign policies, undermines democracies and creates human suffering.
The film Shadow World delves into some of the biggest and most corrupt arms deals in the world through the perspectives of whistleblowers, investigators, prosecutors, journalists, military and industry insiders. It illustrates how the global arms trade operates in a parallel legal universe, where those in charge are rarely held accountable for their often illegal actions. Ultimately, it exposes the true costs of war and how the arms trade fuels it, as well as how the defense industry, which is supposed to enhance security, instead creates a more dangerous world.
The film includes powerful interviews from a variety of experts, including Chris Hedges, a former war correspondent for the New York Times; Franklin C. Spinney, a former Pentagon military analyst; Cynthia McKinney, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives; Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Chief of Staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell; and Wesley Clark, a retired U.S. Army general and former Supreme Allied Commander, Europe.
Released November 20, 2017
