Back in November, I wrote a piece for the magazine about Robert Greenwald's viral video efforts during the 2008 election. The filmmaker/activist's unconventional methods made news again this past weekend with an article in The New York Times about his latest effort: Rethink Afghanistan, a documentary that he will release in five parts on the Internet. The first two parts of the film are online already at RethinkAfghanistan.com, and Greenwald went to Afghanistan on Sunday to do some more shooting.

According to the article, the different segments of the film will eventually be combined into a full feature that Greenwald hopes to distribute through a variety of methods, including house parties and more traditional theatrical distribution. But at the moment, he's feeling the need for speed.

It helps that the Internet increasingly serves as a global distributor for video. No distributor “moves at the speed of YouTube,” Mr. Greenwald said.

His current subject, Afghanistan, is especially time sensitive. President Obamahas already ordered 17,000 more troops to the country and is on the verge of outlining a new strategy. Given that backdrop, “it didn’t seem to make sense to make a film that would come out even six months from now,” Mr. Greenwald said.

Here's the trailer for the film. You can read the full article in the Times here.