Open CallWar Stories: Completed Productions
1. Pitch | 2. Rate Pitches | 3. Production | 4. Rough Cuts | 5. Completed Productions
"Wars erupt between nations, between ideas, and between people." In the summer of 2007, filmmakers were encouraged to pitch us ideas on this Open Call theme. From the many submitted pitches, 14 were selected for consideration and 5 were ultimately produced and promoted with Ken Burns' The War. Watch their finished results below!
A Clearing in the Fog
Oh, Johnny
Sonny's Letters From the War
Children on War
Completed Productions
War GamesA Clearing in the Fog
Oh, Johnny
Sonny's Letters From the War
Children on War
| War Games |
Pitched by:
Heather Arment - Seattle, WA Several months ago I was sifting through some old family slides when I came across an image of me (age 3) sheepishly hiding behind my two older brothers. What stood out to me in an otherwise stereotypical family photo was that all three of us had play pistols strapped to our tiny prepubescent waists. "War" was as American to us a baseball and apple pie. This quirky, animated narrative explores my childhood's obsession with guns, heros and villains and how one accident introduced the reality check that made my brothers and I retire our weapons. Watch + Rate > Read Producer's Bio > |
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| A Clearing in the Fog |
Pitched by:
Noah Harlan - New York, NY My grandfather, Irving Sarot, was an Army surgeon in Europe during WWII. He directed a front line hospital for three years and in that time oversaw the treatment of tens of thousands of soldiers (allied and axis) and even had his hospital captured by the Nazis twice. He was chief surgeon at the fall of the Remagen bridge and the freeing of Buchnewald and the following experience happened around the time of the Battle of the Bulge in the Black Forest in Germany. I would like to tell his story using the enormous number of original photographs my grandfather has of his hospital during the war, digitally manipulated to create a sense of motion and lyricism. This piece should be like a poem. Watch + Rate > Read Producer's Bio > |
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| Oh, Johnny |
Pitched by:
Ellen Lake - Oakland, CA Combining 16mm films from the 30s and 40s with digital video from today, Elizabeth Patterson tells the story of the loss of her husband Johnny, killed when the Ticonderoga was bombed at the end of WW II. Using home movies from Elizabeth Patterson's closet (I recently discovered two ammunition boxes filled with 16 mm reels) as source material, this short will examine ideas about war, romance, place, memory, time, and technology. Watch + Rate > Read Producer's Bio > |
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| Sonny's Letters From the War |
Pitched by:
Alex Rapp - Cambridge, MA Pvt. Walter “Sonny” Pyrih, as remembered through his sincere and touching letters to family. Born in 1923 in Ansonia CT, son of Ukrainian immigrants, Sonny was just turning 20 when he was drafted into the army. As s devoted family man, he wrote home as often as possible, sending a wonderful collection of letters filled with anecdotes, and personal reflections about family, friends, and of course, the war. Consistently upbeat, he was more concerned with reassuring his worried mother than with his own plight. Sadly, this outlook proved overly optimistic. He died in action on October, 1944 in northern Italy, leaving just his letters behind. Watch + Rate > Read Producer's Bio > |
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| Children on War |
Pitched by:
Elizabeth Wood - New York, NY The idea of war is so essential to the history mankind, yet is so foreign to the innocence we experience as children, or is it? I propose to create a three minute film from serious interviews with children, exploring their concept of what war is, and why we go to war. This will be intercut with scenes of the children playing, fighting, learning. This three minute film will provoke the viewer to question their own ideas of war, and how that may or may have not been influenced in the process of growing up. Watch + Rate > Read Producer's Bio > |
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