With his partner, the late Garrett Scott, Ian Olds made the excellent Iraq war doc, Occupation: Dreamland. This year Olds completed his first solo doc, Fixer, a riveting story of the capture and execution by the Taliban of Ajmal Nadshbandi, whose job was to aid foreign journalists in their attempts to capture what’s going on in Afghanistan and make sense of it for us. The film not only captures the human tragedy of Nadshbandi’s killing but also its global dimension, showing us how governments decide how to value the lives of their citizens.

On the basis of this film as well as knowledge of Olds’ upcoming projects, we selected him as one of our “25 New Faces” this year. Tonight, Fixer premieres on HBO at 9pm and we highly recommend it.