The Hurt Locker ceremony, it won six Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director for Bigelow (the first woman to win this award), and Best Original Screenplay for Boal. "The Hurt Locker" is based on accounts of Mark Boal, a freelance journalist who was embedded with an American bomb squad in the war in Iraq for two weeks in 2004. The director Kathryn Bigelow was familiar with Boal's work before his experiences, having adapted one of his "Playboy" articles as the short-lived television series "The Inside" in 2002. When Boal was embedded with the squad, he accompanied its members 10 to 15 times a
This Is the Life (2008 film) Awards at ReelWorld Film Festival in Toronto and Langston Hughes African-American Film Festival in Seattle. The film was selected for the invitation-only National Black Arts Festival in June 2008 in Atlanta. On July 31, 2008, the award-winning documentary debuted as a finished work at Allison Anders' 'Don't Knock The Rock' film series in Los Angeles to a sold-out audience. Other official festival selections include: National Black Arts Festival, BET's UrbanWorld Film Festival, San Francisco Black Film Festival, Martha's Vineyard African American Film Festival, Black Lily Film & Music Festival, Arizona Black Film Showcase and Roxbury Film Festival. "LA Weekly" wrote