Find Fix Finish

When we think of warfare, we usually think of soldiers taking on the enemy at close range in a savage life-or-death battle. In recent years, however, this is by no means always the case. High in the skies above Afghanistan, drones are flying, directly controlled from a screen somewhere in the United States. All it takes is to go through a fixed series of protocols and press a button, and the target is then eliminated. In this short documentary, drone pilots talk about this chilling work. For days, weeks, even months on end, they stare at the private lives of strangers, knowing that they hold the power of life or death over them. They candidly share all the details, but the identities of these remote-control pilots are protected. We only hear their voices as we watch calm, objective imagery taken from miles up in the sky—a cold-blooded distance that receives an attractive visual twist. In one such aerial recording, on a beach, we see small, anonymous figures teeming across the screen. In the long shadows they cast on the sand, we recognize human beings.