The Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival will celebrate Veteran's Day with a special showing of the war documentary "Baghdad Diary." The movie will be shown November 11 and while everyone is invited, it is free for active, inactive and retired service personnel.

Written and directed by Sandra and Joseph Consentino, "Baghdad Diary" is a cautionary tale of war's human toll from two unique perspectives. From 2003-2007, Iraqi taxi driver Fadil Kadom's video diary records his family's wartime survival, the days of bombs and missiles, Baghdad's fall, the horrors of Saddam's torture houses and mass graves and the return of religious freedom in Karbala. His video also unmasks the mounting fear as Iraqi streets turn deadly with insurgent and sectarian violence.

In nine dangerous trips to Iraq, NBC News cameraman Craig White embedded with the U.S. Army chronicles everything from combat to the disintegration of Iraqi civil society. His emotional and graphic scenes include the death of NBC correspondent David Bloom and the ambush at Objective Curly, a battle so fierce, Craig White thought he would not survive.

Celebrity News Service talked to producer and director Joseph Consentino about the making of this documentary. In the following question and answer session, Joseph shares his thoughts on the film.

CNS: How has "Baghdad Diary" changed your perspective on war?

Joseph: When you decide to make a documentary on war, you have many choices. Sandra and I looked at all of them including an obvious political approach, but we decided to focus on the human toll of war. This means you need to have two perspectives, one from both sides of the conflict.

When a friend of mine from Norway told me that while on assignment in Iraq one month before the invasion, he had worked with a Iraqi taxi driver he also befriended. When he left one week before the actual invasion, he gave the man a small Sony camcorder and two dozen videotapes, and told him to film his family as they prepared for the conflict. Four months later, when my friend shared these videotapes with me, they had to be translated but I could see visually that the taxi driver knew where to point the camera. At that point, we became involved and started to make suggestions of possible scenes for him to videotape.

At the same time, we began looking at footage of American news cameramen who were also in Iraq covering the war. While interviewing these individuals, we met Craig White, an NBC News cameraman, who with David Bloom, was embedded with the Third Infantry and filmed the war from Kuwait to Baghdad. We decided to follow both the Iraqi taxi driver and the NBC cameraman Craig White and tell their parallel stories from 2003-2007. Having these two perspectives afforded Sandra and I a unique look at war and its aftermath. "Baghdad Diary" didn't change our perspective on war, it just reaffirmed our belief in non-violent solutions to conflicts.

CNS: Has it changed how others see war, after they watch your documentary?

Joseph: We have screened "Baghdad Diary" at several film festivals around the U.S. and Sandra and I were very pleased by the variety of positive comments from the audience in reacting to the documentary. Everyone applauded the apolitical stance of "Baghdad Diary"'s approach and related strongly to the film's American and Iraqi subjects. They also felt that by seeing the Iraqi conflict from both perspectives, it allowed them greater insight into the Iraq war and a greater understanding of the back story leading to the sectarian violence. The audience also felt that they too experienced the Iraqi people's hatred and fear of Saddam Hussein .

CNS: What was the biggest impact on your life regarding producing this movie?

Joseph: Since 98 percent of the footage filmed by Iraqi taxi driver Fadil Kadom was in Arabic, we needed it translated. We found a young Iraqi translator studying here in the U.S., who was a Fulbright Scholar in the Master's program at Dartmouth College. We hired him and he lived with us on and off for three months as he translated over 100 hours of footage. We also learned that he had deserted from the Iraqi army because he hated Saddam Hussein. We decided that the young man should provide some back story in "Baghdad Diary" and because he was returning to Iraq we changed his name to protect he and his family.

Meeting and working with this young gave us more greater insight into the Iraqi people and the real horrors of war. He returned to Iraq in 2007 to be with his family, but in 2008 he went to England to pursue his doctorate degree.

We also received the following email from an American soldier named Leon Vandersterren, who had just returned from Iraq when he saw "Baghdad Diary" and as you could imagine impacted Sandra and I tremendously.

To whom it may concern, Outstanding, amazing, very good and real life footage. And that at the right time. As a Iraqi Freedom Veteran myself I found this documentary 100 percent accurate. It's not your average news that bashes everybody in Iraq. This documentary is outstanding. I shed some tears, and it really does do me good in dealing with the past when I was there. Normally the news on Iraq is all negative and bad. The reporters report only the bad things that happen nowadays. This documentary is for once NEUTRAL, and shows both sides. Which I encountered also. Just had to write you about this, and as a veteran of this war, it sure does help me heal the wounds. Thanks for the outstanding and moving documentary.

CNS: What do you hope people walk away with after they see Baghdad Diary?

Joseph: We hope that people after seeing "Baghdad Diary" fully understand the human toll and devastation of war and question our country's leadership in the future.

"Baghdad Diary" will be shown at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival on November 11 at 5:15 p.m. at Cinema Paradiso.