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GUARDED FILMMAKER
Over at Sujewa Ekanayake’s Indie Features 06, the group blog where he’s invited filmmakers premiering their films this year to post, director Deborah Scranton has joined the mix. Her doc, The War Tapes, premieres at the upcoming Tribeca Film Festival. Click on the film’s link to go to Scranton’s own site, where she’s posted clips of the film and maintains a running blog in which her own writing is complemented by others involved with her film. And here’s how she introduced herself at Indie Features 06:
I’m a film director, single mom, former competitive ski racer, New England farm girl, semiotics major, classics minor, military history neophyte, and — as of today — blogger.
February 12, 2004, I got an offer from the New Hampshire National Guard to embed as a filmmaker. I called the public affairs officer and asked if I could give cameras to the soldiers instead? He said yes…but it would be up to me to get soldiers to volunteer to work with the project.
Less than two weeks later I was on plane down to Fort Dix, NJ. I stepped out in front of those 180 men and told them of my vision. I was met with a hailstorm of questions.
Are you for the war,
Are you against the war,
What are your politics,
How are you going to take and twist our words,
What do you want us to film,
Why should we believe you….At the heart of their questions was – why should we trust you with our experiences? My reply was, we would do this together. We would tell the story, their story, wherever it took us, no matter what.
