DC/DOX Film Festival 2025

Bodyguard of Lies

Bodyguard of Lies

Director

Dan Krauss

Executive Producers

Dan Krauss, Stacey Offman, Richard Perello, Craig Whitlock

Producers

Alex Gibney, Ahmad Sharifi, Darryl Frank, Justin Falvey, Brad Hebert, Susan Zirinsky, Terence Wrong

Associate Producers

Shakeeb Asrar, Emily Thomas

Supervising Producers

Whitney Johnson, Erin Edeiken, Aysu Saliba, Cara Tortora

Co-Producer

David Iversen

Editor

Paul Snyder

Consulting Editor

Co-Editor

Assistant Editor

Cinematographer

Brett Wiley

Additional Cinematography

Music

Animal Collective

Sound

Narration

Contact

Contrary to popular belief about the war in Afghanistan, the United States has never waged a campaign that the American public knows less about. For twenty years, across four presidential administrations, top public officials and military leaders told us emphatically that victory was around the corner, that our sacrifices were yielding meaningful progress, that we were witnessing the birth of a bright, new democracy. None of it was true.

BODYGUARD OF LIES is the first unvarnished draft of the history of the Afghanistan War. With access to government insiders, confidential documents, private audio recordings, and never-before-seen footage, the film tells the story of the war in Afghanistan through a fresh lens, showing how government officials persistently sold the American public on the war’s winnability, pushing exaggerated metrics to win congressional appropriations while burying internal reports suggesting the war was spiraling toward disaster.

The film weaves together a shattering tale of lies, corruption, and corrosive culture that will make us question everything we’ve been told about this war—and the wars still to come.

Post-screening discussion with director Dan Krauss, former Inspector General of the Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko, investigative reporter for The Washington Post and the author of The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War, Craig Whitlock, and producer Susan Zirinsky. With a special introduction by Narges Bajoghli, anthropologist, scholar, and filmmaker, Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. Moderated by David Martin, CBS News’ national security correspondent.

Dan Krauss

Director, Bodyguard of Lies

Dan Krauss received his first Academy Award nomination in 2006 for his HBO short The Death of Kevin Carter and again in 2017 for his Netflix film, Extremis. His feature documentary 5B premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival and went on to a nationwide theatrical release. In 2014, The Kill Team won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival, the Truer than Fiction Independent Spirit Award, nominations from the Directors Guild of America and the Emmy Awards, and was shortlisted for an Academy Award. In 2019, Krauss adapted the documentary into a dramatized feature for vaunted film studio A24 starring Alexander Skarsgård and Nat Wolff. He has been a cinematographer on such renowned documentaries as OJ: Made in America; Inequality for All; and The Most Dangerous Man in America. Krauss earned his Master’s Degree from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism where he has lectured in film and television production. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and the Directors Guild of America.