"Just before the election, a film about Iraq hit art house theaters around the country," writes Eartha Melzer. The "Voices of Iraq [3]" documentary came from more than 400 hours of footage from 150 digital video cameras distributed to people around Iraq. Its tone is upbeat; "former Iraqi political prisoners are shown laughing off the stories of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib [4]." The Washington DC-based Iraq Foundation [5], which receives State Department [6] and National Endowment for Democracy [7] funding, assisted the film's producers. The U.S. Army's former PR firm, Manning Selvage & Lee [8], coordinated publicity for the film. Given its timing, tone and connections, Melzer asks if Voices of Iraq was intended "to propagandize the U.S. population."