Winter Soldier - The Film
June 27, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Dennis Doros and Amy Heller, co-founders of Milestone Films,announce the formation of Milliarium Zero, a new companyspecifically created to acquire and distribute films of strongpolitical and social content. Milliarium Zero's first release isWinter Soldier -- a documentary chronicle of the extraordinaryWinter Soldier Investigation conducted by Vietnam Veterans Againstthe War (VVAW) in Detroit during the winter of 1971.Winter Soldier was made at a time when public opposition to theVietnam War had reached new heights in response to the revelationsof the killing of civilians at My Lai. Leaders at the VVAW andother antiwar activists began to organize an event at which vetscould talk candidly about their experiences in the war. Celebrityactivists including Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Graham Nash andPhil Ochs helped raise money for the Detroit meetings.The Winter Soldier Investigation took place in the second-floorballroom of a Howard Johnson's motel in Detroit, January 31 -February 2, 1971. The organizers chose the name for the meetingfrom a line in Thomas Paine's first Crisis Paper: "These are thetimes that try men's souls. The summer soldier and sunshinepatriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of theircountry. But he who stands by it now deserves the love and thanksof man and woman." The Vietnam veterans saw themselves assoldiers, in the darkest of times, battling the wrongs of the warand speaking out against the brutal training that made themcapable of unthinkable violence.Recognizing the urgency and historical importance of theinvestigation, a remarkable group of independent filmmakers cametogether to document the veterans' testimonies. Calling themselvesWinterfilm, their collective included Fred Aronow, Nancy Baker,Joe Bangert, Rhetta Barron, Robert Fiore, David Gillis, DavidGrubin, Jeff Holstein, Barbara Jarvis, Al Kaupas, Barbara Kopple,Mark Lenix, Michael Lesser, Lee Osborne, Lucy Massie Phenix, RogerPhenix, 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 AcademyAwards in the process.)Over the course of four days and nights, using donated equipmentand film stock, the Winterfilm members shot footage of more than125 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 WinterSoldier'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 NewYork'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 ofLincoln 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 atwinterfilm@... or (201) 767-3110.
At the Film Society of Lincoln Center, contact
Graham Leggat at(212) 875-5416.
Dennis DorosMilliarium ZeroPO Box 128Harrington Park, NJ 07640
Phone: (201) 767-3110Fax: (201) 767-3035Email: winterfilm@...
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