Hot Docs 2008

What do Danish cartoons tell us about contemporary democracy? A lot, it seems. Bloody Cartoons examines the aftermath of the violent furor that erupted in Muslim countries around the world when the independent Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published cartoons of the prophet Muhammad in September 2005. Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has called the controversy Denmark's worst international crisis since World War II. Freedom of expression is seen by many as an indispensable principle of democracy. But what happens when one democratic right infringes on the rights of others? Is democracy itself shaped by religion? Are religions democratic? More importantly, is God democratic? Profiling various subjects in Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Qatar, France, Turkey and Denmark who played key roles in the cartoon controversy, Bloody Cartoons peels back the layers to document the escalation of the political controversy.