Silent Night

The Kandahar massacre is considered the deadliest war crime blamed on a single member of the U.S. Armed Forces since the war in Vietnam. In the early morning hours of March 11, 2012, U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales admittedly killed 16 Afghan civilians in villages near the military camp where he was based. Lela Ahmadzai traveled to Afghanistan and spoke to the survivors who lost their closest relatives in the night of Bales' riot. The product of her journey is a documentary that moves the focus away from the suspect and tells the story of the victims whose voices, so far, have remained publicly unheard. Meanwhile, on August 23rd, 2013, a military sentenced Sgt. Bales to a life sentence without parole during a court-martial at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Seattle. On June 5, 2013, Bales had pleaded guilty to 16 murders and 6 attempted murders in a deal to avoid the death penalty - to the disappointment of many survivors and their relatives.