WINTER SOLDIERS: Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan
January 20th - 27th & 30th

With Winter Soldiers: Iraq and Afghanistan, the veteran and active duty led inquiry of 2008 and its inspiration—the original Winter Soldier Investigation of 1971 (and the film by the same name)—as bookends, this series explores the soldier's point of view in these conflicts as well as their role in the genesis of any critique of these wars.

Co-sponsored by the National Black Programming Consortium, The Brecht Forum, The International Trauma Studies Program and Red Channels.

WINTER SOLDIERS: Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan

Winter Soldier (Vietnam)
Winterfilm Collective, 1972, 96 min.
For three days in the winter of 1971, 30 Vietnam veterans testified on war crimes in Detroit, Michigan as a part of the "Winter Soldier Investigation" conducted by Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). A call went out from VVAW to veterans all over the country saying, in effect, 'everyone is talking about the war that you know from the inside. If you want to have anything to say about it, come to Detroit and tell it like you saw it.' At the investigation, over 125 veterans representing every major combat unit to see action in Vietnam, gave eye-witness testimony to war crimes and atrocities they either participated in or witnessed. The purpose of the investigation was to bring to light the nature of American military policy in Vietnam. This film follows the events and several of the veterans.

Followed by a discussion with Joe Urgo – Organizer, Winter Soldier 1970 - 1972. Other speakers TBA

WINTER SOLDIERS: Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan

Iraq for Sale
Dir. Robert Greenwald, 2006, 75 min.
The story of what happens to everyday Americans when corporations go to war. One man documentary film studio Robert Greenwald (Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Outfoxed) takes you inside the lives of soldiers, truck drivers, widows and children who have been changed forever as a result of profiteering in the reconstruction of Iraq. Iraq for Sale uncovers the connections between private corporations making a killing in Iraq (Blackwater, Halliburton/KBR, CACI and Titan) and the decision makers who allow them to do so.

Speakers TBA

WINTER SOLDIERS: Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan

Sir! No Sir!
Dir. David Zeiger, 2005, 84 min.
Like the Vietnam War itself, the GI Antiwar Movement started small and within a few years had exploded into a force that altered history. The movement was never characterized by one organization or leader but from the 500,000 GIs who deserted over the course of the war to the untold numbers who wore peace signs, defied military discipline and avoided combat, a counter-culture was created that threatened the entire military culture of the time and changed the course of the war. Sir! No Sir! reflects on this war and this movement. (Work-In-Progress) Dir. David Zeiger, 2010, 20 min. Preview of upcoming documentary on the Winter Soldier hearings from 2008 on Iraq and Afghanistan. Features testimony from U.S. veterans who served in those wars, giving an accurate account of what is really happening day in and day out, on the ground. In addition, panels of scholars, veterans, journalists, and other specialists give context to the testimony

This Is Where We Take Our Stand (Work-In-Progress)
Dir. David Zeiger, 2010, 20 min.
Preview of upcoming documentary on the Winter Soldier hearings from 2008 on Iraq and Afghanistan. Features testimony from U.S. veterans who served in those wars, giving an accurate account of what is really happening day in and day out, on the ground. In addition, panels of scholars, veterans, journalists, and other specialists give context to the testimony.

Q&A with director David Zeiger and Carl Dix, Vietnam veteran and Sir! No Sir! subject. Additonal speakers TBA.

WINTER SOLDIERS: Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan

No Vietnamese Ever Called Me Nigger
Dir. David Loeb Weiss, 1968, 68 min.
The struggle for racial equality and the anti-Vietnam war movement are paralleled in this documentary. Includes B-roll and interviews from a large anti-war protest in Harlem in 1968.

This War At Home
Produced by Kay Shaw, and Nonso Christian Ugbode, 2008, 6 min.
Bronx based filmmaker Ivan Sanchez Jr. examines the loss of African-American and Latino male role models to a war waged abroad and its impact on the "war at home" - struggles for survival and development in Black and Brown communities in U.S. cities. Sanchez Jr. brings personal insight to this structural problem as he connects the loss of his 19 year old uncle Ivan in Vietnam in 1968 to his involvement in gangs and drugs as a youth. Sanchez Jr. resolves to compensate for his absent role models by doubling his efforts to guide and love the next generation. This War At Home was produced through NBPC's Black Masculinity Series in 2008.

Followed by a discussion with Richard Adams (filmmaker; cameraman for No Vietnamese), Kazembe Balagun (organizer, writer; Outreach Coordinator of the Brecht Forum), Matt Peterson (critic and filmmaker; curator of Red Channels), Ivan Sanchez, Jr. (author of Next Stop (2008); writer of This War at Home).

WINTER SOLDIERS: Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan

Full Disclosure
Dir. Brian Palmer, 2009, 57 min.
Journalist Brian Palmer followed young U.S. Marines on dozens of missions during three embeds in Iraq between 2004 and 2006. Back in the States, he continued to document the war and its human cost. Full Disclosure captures the consistent, sometimes benign, but often tragic miscommunication between U.S. troops and vulnerable Iraqi citizens. Amid the inexorable and destructive momentum of the occupation, the documentary explores the consequences of our inability to speak with and understand those whose country we occupy. It exposes the gap between what we think we're doing in Iraq and what we're actually doing. Iraq was the war five years ago when Palmer started Full Disclosure. Afghanistan was "the forgotten war." The opposite may be true in 2010, but even as Americans turn toward "AfPak" and Yemen, the discord and damage in Iraq remain.

God is My Safest Bunker
Dir. Lee Wang, 2008, 42 min.
More than 30,000 low-wage workers from Southeast Asia work for American military contractors in Iraq, cleaning toilets, serving food and building barracks. Through the stories of three Filipino workers and their families, Wang's probing documentary investigates the conditions - both domestic and global - which have forced economic migration into the Iraqi war zone, and how they are understood as lived experience.

Q&A with Director Lee Wang.

WINTER SOLDIERS: Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan

In the Name of Democracy: The Story of Lt. Ehren Watada
Dir. Nina Rosenblum, 2009, 77 min.
A film on the first officer in the United States Army to refuse deployment to Iraq on moral grounds. Explores what prompted Lt. Watada to choose the course he did in the service of protesting an immoral and, for him, unconstitutional war.

Q&A with Dir. Nina Rosenblum and actor Charles Grodin. Additional speakers TBA

A SOLDIER'S STORY

Lioness
Dir. Meg McLagan & Daria Sommers, 2008, 90 min.
Lioness tells the story of a group of female Army support soldiers who were part of the first program in American history to send women into direct ground combat. Without the same training as their male counterparts but with a commitment to serve as needed, these young women fought in some of the bloodiest counterinsurgency battles of the Iraq war and returned home as part of this country's first generation of female combat veterans. Lioness makes public, for the first time, their hidden history.

Panel discussion with directors Meg McLagan and Daria Sommers, Michelle Wilmot (Lioness and Program Director at the Veteran's Homestead Northeast Veteran Training and Rehabilitation Facility in Gardner, MA), and Anuradha Bhagwati, the Service Women's Action Network (SWAN).

Co-sponsored by The Service Women's Action Network

UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF EGO TRIP

80 Blocks From Tiffany's
Dir. Gary Wiess, 1979, 67 min.

Shotgun
Dir. Steven Goodman, 1982, 25 min.

Egotrip and the Maysles Institute have partnered to present Egotrip's favourite documentaries. 80 Blocks from Tiffany's is a rich film where filmmaker Gary Wiess and cinematographer Joan Churchill hang out with the South Bronx gang, the Savage Skulls. In Shotgun, this party atmosphere turns tragic. Steven Goodman, who has gone on to lead the field of video education with EVC, provides a portrait of Shotgun, an eighteen-year-old gang member living in the South Bronx, facing serious criminal charges.

In attendance: Both filmmakers, Ponce Laspina, a former 5th Division President of the notorious Savage Skulls, and NYPD Detective Robert Werner (who appears prominently in 80 Blocks)

GET DOWN AND PARTY. TOGETHER

Shiva Dances with the Art Institute of Chicago
2004, 56 min (excerpt)
including:
Funk Lessons
Dir. Sam Samore, 1983, 15 min.

This screening will focus on artist Adrian Piper's groundbreaking work Funk Lessons 1983. Ms. Piper situates Funk Lessons first in the evolving tradition of recent mainstream films that highlight the teaching of popular dance as a medium of self-transcendence and cross-cultural contact.

"My immediate aim in staging the large-scale performance was to enable everyone present to GET DOWN AND PARTY. TOGETHER." -Adrian Piper, Notes on Funk

Funk Lessons is a video piece based on Adrian Pipers interactive performance at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1983. Piper's Funk Lessons (1982-84) was a series of participatory social events where the (black) artist taught mostly white participants how to dance to funk music. As Piper noted in Notes on Funk (1985): "We were all engaged in the pleasurable process of self-transcendence and creative expression within a highly structured and controlled cultural idiom, in a way that attempted to overcome cultural and racial barriers." Though the election of President Barack Obama shows us how far integration in America has come since Funk Lessons was first staged, the racial and cultural issues addressed by Piper in Funk Lessons continue to resonate. By re-visiting Funk Lessons now, we will, in the spirit of Adrian Piper, offer a festive opportunity for disparate communities to come together, helping to break down the racial barriers that are still in place today. We will "GET DOWN AND PARTY. TOGETHER." Again.

Followed by a dance party.

A SOLDIER'S STORY

Off to War: The Story of Arkansas National Guard's Journey to Iraq
Dir. Brent and Craig Renaud, 2004, 90 min.
In April 2004, 57 citizen soldiers from Clarksville, Arkansas left their jobs and their families to serve in Iraq as members of the 239th Infantry of the Arkansas National Guard. Embedded with them is the brother filmmaking team of Brent and Craig Renaud who tell their story.

Q&A with Craig and Brent Renaud, Sgt. 1st Class Curtis Rohrscheib, Off to War Shannon Rohrscheib, Off to War.

Co-sponsored by The Service Women's Action Network