Open Call: Pitch Reels

En Route Pitch:

During the first Gulf War I was 18 years old and studying in Germany on scholarship. I boarded an overnight train to Frankfurt where there weren’t any available seats and found myself standing alone in the hallway with an American soldier my same age. We discovered we were from roughly the same part of the country, but were otherwise worlds apart. I was adamantly against the war and having recently signed up with Selective Service couldn’t fathom participating in it. He’d enlisted in high school and had gone deaf in one ear from an explosion while serving in Iraq. I was traveling through Europe on school holiday. He was returning to his Army base in Germany after being injured. We rode together all night - he propped up on his Army duffel bag, me leaning against my backpack my parents bought me - and swapped stories about our year since high school.

My goal is to re-create the essence of that moment highlighting the cultural division of war. The digital film will be based on a short narrative script I recently wrote juxtaposing my experience more than 15 years ago to the current war. It will be shot in an experimental style on a stage intermixing sound and visuals to engage the viewer.