War, Justice, and Democracy in the Films of Steven Spielberg: Munich

ADMISSION:
Admission is free. Reservations required. 

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DESCRIPTION:
Inspired by real events, Munich reveals the intense story of the secret Israeli squad assigned to track down and assassinate the 11 Palestinians believed to have planned the 1972 Munich massacre of 11 Israeli athletes—and the personal toll this mission of revenge takes on the team and the man who led it. Hailed as “tremendously exciting” (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone), Steven Spielberg’s explosive suspense thriller garnered five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay.

The epic historical drama will be followed by a Q&A with screenwriter Eric Roth, who also wrote screenplays for Forrest Gump, The Insider, and Dune, in conversation with USC School of Cinematic Arts lecturer Luis Gabriel Moreno-Ocampo and professor Ted Braun. 

This event is part of a series of seven screenings and conversations hosted by Moreno-Ocampo and Braun examining how the films of Steven Spielberg have articulated and shaped global narratives of war, justice, and democracy in the 21st century.

About the panelists: 

Eric Roth (screenwriter) won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for Forrest Gump and has been nominated for his screenplays of The Insider, Munich, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, A Star is Born, and Dune. He wrote Mr. Kurosawa’s Rhapsody in August, The Horse Whisperer, Ali, and Best Picture–nominee Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. He was a producer of the Best Picture nominee Mank and received the Laurel Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Writers Guild of America.

Luis Gabriel Moreno-Ocampo (USC School of Cinematic Arts) was the founding chief prosecutor of the new and permanent International Criminal Court from 2003–12. There are seven documentaries presenting parts of his work at the ICC, including Darfur Now and Kony 2012. Previously, he had a critical role during the transition to democracy in Argentina. He was deputy prosecutor in the trial against the military junta, a case depicted in the Amazon production, Argentina 1985, a 2023 Academy Award nominee for Best International Feature Film, and 2023 Golden Globe winner. Currently, he lectures at the USC School of Cinematic Arts on films and war, crimes, and justice. Previously he was a visiting professor at Stanford and Harvard University Law School. In November 2022, Oxford University Press published his book, War and Justice in the 21st Century, describing his nine years of practice as the ICC’s chief prosecutor. He is presently involved in private practice assisting Armenian people suffering a genocide in 2023. 

Ted Braun (USC School of Cinematic Arts) teaches screenwriting and is the Joseph Campbell Endowed Chair in Cinematic Ethics. Braun’s feature documentary, ¡Viva Maestro!, about conductor Gustavo Dudamel, premiered theatrically in 2022, was nominated for the WGA award for Best Feature Documentary, and is currently streaming on MAX. Set against unfolding violence and social unrest in Dudamel’s home of Venezuela, the film is an exploration of art in a time of political crisis. It’s his second film with Participant, which co-financed his feature debut Darfur Now. Darfur Now was named one of 2007’s top five documentaries by the National Board of Review and won the International Documentary Association’s Emerging Filmmaker Award and the NAACP Image Award. His docu-thriller Betting On Zero received a WGA nomination for Best Feature Documentary of 2017, and a special jury mention for investigative work at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. In 2018, Variety named Braun one of the world’s Top Ten Teachers in Film and TV. 

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Presented by the USC School of Cinematic Arts, Outside the Box (Office), and USC Visions and Voices.