Director:

Kelly Duda

Prior to the making of Factor 8, I never considered myself an investigative journalist. In fact, I had never written a newspaper article before in my life. I was an aspiring filmmaker who had a story thrown into his lap. Actually, it wasn’t even a story at the time but a series of events that allegedly took place in my home state in the 1980s. It was a tale I didn’t want to tell, but the more I looked into it, the more I found.

It didn’t take long before I realized that regardless of the cost and sacrifice, the story you’re about to see, which is a complicated one, had to be told. There where quite literally lives at stake. I felt a moral responsibility, a civic duty to do something.

Factor 8 is one person’s search for answers. I warn you, much of what you’ll see will shock you. Factor 8 upsets the apple-cart, and may challenge your world view, and your views about leadership, government, and human nature. I know it did for me.

Lastly, if you are at all impressed by this documentary, know that there are tens of thousands of stories out there right now waiting to be told which the major media have elected not to cover.

When all “500 channels” are own by six business conglomerates, when newspapers don’t own themselves, when cinema verite, and style-over-substance “reality” programming rule the day, when sound bites are the extent of our news coverage, and when “spin” has become an accepted way for disseminating the truth, I ask you, where can the true spirit and expression of the independent voice be heard?

Factor 8 is a story told in the “free press” tradition. And it is a testament to the fact that with a digital video camera, a cell phone, and a laptop computer, real stories by real people can still be told.