Restrepo

Description

"This is hard, hard duty. A 15-month tour. Our admiration for these men grows. Their jobs seem beyond conceiving. I cannot imagine a civilian thinking he could perform them." --Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times "What we see is explosive, deeply moving and impossible to shake." --Peter Travers Rolling Stone "It's the best thing I've seen in a long time." --Michael Phillips At the Movies RESTREPO is a feature-length documentary that chronicles the deployment of a platoon of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley. The movie focuses on a remote 15-man outpost, "Restrepo," named after a platoon medic who was killed in action. It was considered one of the most dangerous postings in the U.S. military. This is an entirely experiential film: the cameras never leave the valley; there are no interviews with generals or diplomats. The only goal is to make viewers feel as if they have just been through a 90-minute deployment. This is war, full stop. The conclusions are up to you. Sebastian Junger (born January 17, 1962) is an American author, journalist, and documentary filmmaker, most famous for the best-selling book The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea . In addition to The Perfect Storm , Junger has also written A Death in Belmont , Fire and his newest bestseller, WAR , upon which the film Restrepo is based on. Tim Hetherington was born in Liverpool, UK. He studied literature at Oxford University and later returned to college to study photojournalism. He is based in New York and is a contributing photographer for Vanity Fair magazine. His interest lies in creating diverse forms of visual communication and his work has ranged from digital projections at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, to fly-poster exhibitions in Lagos, to handheld device downloads. Known for his long-term documentary work, Tim lived and worked in West Africa for eight years and has reported on social and political issues worldwide. His project Healing Sport was published by Thames and Hudson as part of group project Tales of a Globalizing World (Thames & Hudson 2003). Long Story Bit By Bit:Liberia Retold (Umbrage Editions 2009) narrates recent Liberian history by drawing on images and interviews made over a five year period. A new book, Infidel , about a group of US soldiers in Afghanistan continues the examination of young men and conflict, and will be published by Chris Boot in October. As a filmmaker, he has worked as both a cameraman and director/producer. He was a cameraman on Liberia: an Uncivil War (2004) and The Devil Came on Horseback (2007), and his directorial debut film Restrepo about a platoon of soldiers in Afghanistan, was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. He is the recipient of numerous awards including a Fellowship from the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (2000-4), a Hasselblad Foundation grant (2002), four World Press Photo prizes including the World Press Photo of the Year 2007, the Rory Peck Award for Features (2008), and an Alfred I. duPont award (2009).