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Edited on Tue Jul-19-05 09:36 PM by rox63
I hate to repost from DKos, but I thought this would be of interest here. http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/19/205925/290Winter Soldier - The Film
by jimstaro
Tue Jul 19th, 2005 at 17:59:25 PDT
New Film Distribution Company Milliarium Zero Announces
Acquisition and Re-release Premiere of Acclaimed Documentary
Winter Soldier
Landmark 1972 film features Vietnam Veterans Against the War,
Including John Kerry and Scott Camil
Weeklong Run at New York's Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center
Premieres Friday August 12 -- Panel Discussion to Follow
http://www.wintersoldierfilm.com
Press release follows:
June 27, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Dennis Doros and Amy Heller, co-founders of Milestone Films,
announce the formation of Milliarium Zero, a new company
specifically created to acquire and distribute films of strong
political and social content. Milliarium Zero's first release is
Winter Soldier -- a documentary chronicle of the extraordinary
Winter Soldier Investigation conducted by Vietnam Veterans Against
the War (VVAW) in Detroit during the winter of 1971.
Winter Soldier was made at a time when public opposition to the
Vietnam War had reached new heights in response to the revelations
of the killing of civilians at My Lai. Leaders at the VVAW and
other antiwar activists began to organize an event at which vets
could talk candidly about their experiences in the war. Celebrity
activists including Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Graham Nash and
Phil Ochs helped raise money for the Detroit meetings.
The Winter Soldier Investigation took place in the second-floor
ballroom of a Howard Johnson's motel in Detroit, January 31 -
February 2, 1971. The organizers chose the name for the meeting
from a line in Thomas Paine's first Crisis Paper: "These are the
times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and sunshine
patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their
country. But he who stands by it now deserves the love and thanks
of man and woman." The Vietnam veterans saw themselves as
soldiers, in the darkest of times, battling the wrongs of the war
and speaking out against the brutal training that made them
capable of unthinkable violence.
Recognizing the urgency and historical importance of the
investigation, a remarkable group of independent filmmakers came
together to document the veterans' testimonies. Calling themselves
Winterfilm, their collective included Fred Aronow, Nancy Baker,
Joe Bangert, Rhetta Barron, Robert Fiore, David Gillis, David
Grubin, Jeff Holstein, Barbara Jarvis, Al Kaupas, Barbara Kopple,
Mark Lenix, Michael Lesser, Lee Osborne, Lucy Massie Phenix, Roger
Phenix, Benay Rubenstein and Michael Weil. (This group of
filmmakers has gone on individually to make some of the most
important documentaries of our time, winning several Academy
Awards in the process.)
Over the course of four days and nights, using donated equipment
and film stock, the Winterfilm members shot footage of more than
125 veterans (including a very young John Kerry). These men, who
represented every major combat unit that saw action in Vietnam,
gave eyewitness testimony to war crimes and atrocities they either
participated in or witnessed. Members of the collective next spent
eight months editing the raw footage from the hearings together
with film clips and snapshots from Vietnam into the 95-minute
feature documentary Winter Soldier. Because the proceedings went
virtually unreported by the media, the film became the only
complete record of the testimony.
The film was shown at the Cannes and Berlin Film Festivals and
went on to be lauded throughout Europe. In the US, it opened
briefly at the Cinema 2 in Manhattan. At the time of Winter
Soldier's release, underground film critic Amos Vogel wrote: "This
is a film that must be shown in prime time evening on national
television, and never will be." After all three broadcast networks
and PBS declined to show it, the documentary played only on New
York's local public television station, WNET. Since then, only
rare screenings by the filmmakers have kept the legacy alive.
The Winter Soldier meetings revealed the horror and extent of
civilian murders and prisoner abuse in Vietnam, as John Kerry
described it, "committed on a day-to-day basis with the full
awareness of officers at all levels of command." These young men
talked about their participation in rapes, electrocutions,
stonings, tossing prisoners from helicopters and destroying
villages. Even more disturbing was the revelation that these
crimes were ignored, even condoned by official US military policy.
The hearings also exposed for the first time that the US had
illegally and secretly invaded neutral Laos.
For many of the soldiers, this weekend proved a turning point in
their lives. Their courage in testifying, their desire to prevent
further atrocities and to regain their own humanity, provide a
dramatic intensity that makes Winter Soldier an unforgettable
experience.
Now, almost thirty-five years after the hearings in Detroit, the
words of the Winter Soldiers remain powerful, shocking and deeply
upsetting -- even more so because they so eerily remind us of
recent tortures and murders of prisoners held in detention by the
American military. The terrible abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib
have sometimes been reported as unprecedented. The voices of the
veterans in Winter Soldier attest that they were not.
Milliarium Zero translates to "zero milepost." In the US, this
official landmark is located opposite the White House.
Winter Soldier opens for a week's run at the Film Society of
Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater in NYC starting on Friday,
August 12th. A panel of filmmakers and soldiers will be attending.
For more information, stills, screeners and contact information
for the filmmakers and soldiers, get in touch with Dennis Doros at
winterfilm@... or (201) 767-3110.
At the Film Society of Lincoln Center, contact Graham Leggat at
(212) 875-5416.
Dennis Doros
Milliarium Zero
PO Box 128
Harrington Park, NJ 07640
Phone: (201) 767-3110
Fax: (201) 767-3035
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