Open CallOpen Call: Phase 3
1. Pitch | 2. Rate Pitches | 3. Production | 4. Rough Cuts | 5. Completed Productions
Producers Announced
After long deliberations and with input from the community, the WGBH Lab proudly presents the finalists for the War Stories Open Call. Because of the strength of the field, we decided to up the ante and go with six finalists. For the next four weeks, they'll transform their pitches into shorts. At the end of the production period, the shorts will be posted here for the Virtual Rough Cut Review, where once again, your input- along with that of award-winning filmmakers- will help to shape the outcome of the Open Call. Check back here regularly for production updates, and beginning August 7 join in the Virtual Rough Cut Review!
- War Games, Heather Arment- Seattle,WA
- Agent Orange & Oxycontin, Eric Escobar- Oakland, CA
- A Clearing in the Fog, Noah Harlan- New York, NY
- Oh Johnny, Ellen Lake- Oakland, CA
- Sonny's Letters From the War, Alex Rapp- Cambridge, MA
- The Birth of War, Elizabeth Wood- New York, NY
War Games
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, heroes and villains and how one accident introduced the reality check that made my brothers and I retire our weapons.
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Agent Orange & Oxycontin
Eric Escobar - Oakland, CA
My dad is slowly dying from his exposure to Agent Orange while serving his country in Vietnam. In January of 2001, his conditioned worsened, and we didn't know how long he had left to live. I asked him what was the one thing he wanted to do before he checked out. He said he 'had to see ground zero before they covered it over.' So we loaded him up on Oxycontin, flew from SFO to JFK, checked into a hotel and went looking for ground zero. I brought my camcorder.
A Clearing in the Fog
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.
His hospital had been receiving wounded steadily for days and were treating both allied troops and some locals injured in shelling. A German officer showed up at the hospital, surrendering, with an injured young girl in his arms. He asked to see the head of the hospital and when my Grandfather appeared he explained that this was his daughter, he was a surrendering German officer - also a surgeon, she was injured and would the hospital please treat her. My grandfather, who maintained a strict policy of treating the most injured first, evaluated her and agreed to take her in for surgery right away. The German thanked him profusely and as he went to introduce himself my grandfather interrupted and said: "No, I know who you are. I was a medical student in Germany ten years ago and you were the doctor that supervised my rounds." After surgery, while the daughter recovered, my grandfather and this German officer sat outside during a lull and talked about what had happened in each of their lives during the past 10 years that led to them being on opposite sides of such a brutal war.
I would like to tell the 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.
Oh Johnny
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.
Sonny's Letters From the War
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.
The Birth of War
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.