Milliarium Zero

[jimboloco]

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Forwarded from VVAW's mailbox to all on VVAWINC and VVAWNET:



*New Film Distribution Company Milliarium Zero Announces Acquisition
and Re-release Premiere of Acclaimed Documentary
**/Winter Soldier

/Landmark 1972 film features Vietnam Veterans Against the War,
Including John Kerry and Scott Camil

Weeklong Run at New York¹s Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center
Premieres Friday August 12 < Panel Discussion to Follow


*

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 27, 2005



Dennis Doros and Amy Heller, co-founders of Milestone Films, announce
the formation of Milliarium Zero, a new company specifically created to
acquire and distribute films of strong political and social content.
Milliarium Zero¹s first release is /Winter Soldier/ < a documentary
chronicle of the extraordinary Winter Soldier Investigation conducted
by
Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) in Detroit during the winter of
1971.

/Winter Soldier/ was made at a time when public opposition to the
Vietnam War had reached new heights in response to the revelations of
the killing of civilians at My Lai. Leaders at the VVAW and other
antiwar activists began to organize an event at which vets could talk
candidly about their experiences in the war. Celebrity activists
including Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Graham Nash and Phil Ochs
helped raise money for the Detroit meetings.

The Winter Soldier Investigation took place in the second-floor
ballroom
of a Howard Johnson¹s motel in Detroit, January 31 - February 2, 1971.
The organizers chose the name for the meeting from a line in Thomas
Paine¹s first Crisis Paper: "These are the times that try men¹s souls.
The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink
from the service of their country. But he who stands by it now deserves
the love and thanks of man and woman." The Vietnam veterans saw
themselves as soldiers, in the darkest of times, battling the wrongs of
the war and speaking out against the brutal training that made them
capable of unthinkable violence.

Recognizing the urgency and historical importance of the investigation,
a remarkable group of independent filmmakers came together to document
the veterans¹ testimonies. Calling themselves Winterfilm, their
collective included Fred Aronow, Nancy Baker, Rhetta Barron, Robert
Fiore, David Gillis, David Grubin, Barbara Jarvis, Barbara Kopple,
Michael Lesser, Lee Osborne, Lucy Massie Phenix, Roger Phenix, Benay
Rubenstein and Michael Weil. (This group of filmmakers has gone on
individually to make some of the most important documentaries of our
time, winning several Academy Awards in the process.)

Over the course of four days and nights, using donated equipment and
film stock, the Winterfilm members shot footage of more than 125
veterans (including a very young John Kerry). These men, who
represented
every major combat unit that saw action in Vietnam, gave eyewitness
testimony to war crimes and atrocities they either participated in or
witnessed. Members of the collective next spent eight months editing
the
raw footage from the hearings together with film clips and snapshots
from Vietnam into the 95-minute feature documentary /Winter Soldier/.
Because the proceedings went virtually unreported by the media, the
film
became the only complete record of the testimony.

The film was shown at the Cannes and Berlin Film Festivals and went on
to be lauded throughout Europe. In the US, it opened briefly at the
Cinema 2 in Manhattan. At the time of /Winter Soldier/¹s release,
underground film critic Amos Vogel wrote: "This is a film that must be
shown in prime time evening on national television, and never will be."
After all three broadcast networks and PBS declined to show it, the
documentary played only on New York¹s local public television station,
WNET. Since then, only rare screenings by the filmmakers have kept the
legacy alive.

The Winter Soldier meetings revealed the horror and extent of civilian
murders and prisoner abuse in Vietnam, as John Kerry described it,
"committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at
all levels of command." These young men talked about their
participation
in rapes, electrocutions, stonings, tossing prisoners from helicopters
and destroying villages. Even more disturbing was the revelation that
these crimes were ignored, even /condoned/ by official US military
policy. The hearings also exposed for the first time that the US had
illegally and secretly invaded neutral Laos.

For many of the soldiers, this weekend proved a turning point in their
lives. Their courage in testifying, their desire to prevent further
atrocities and to regain their own humanity, provide a dramatic
intensity that makes /Winter Soldier/ an unforgettable experience.

Now, almost thirty-five years after the hearings in Detroit, the words
of the Winter Soldiers remain powerful, shocking and deeply upsetting
--
even more so because they so eerily remind us of recent tortures and
murders of prisoners held in detention by the American military. The
terrible abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib have sometimes been reported
as unprecedented. The voices of the veterans in Winter Soldier attest
that they were not.

Milliarium Zero translates to "zero milepost." In the US, this official
landmark is located opposite the White House.

/Winter Soldier/ opens for a week¹s run at the Film Society of Lincoln
Center¹s Walter Reade Theater in NYC starting on Friday, August 12th. A
panel of filmmakers and soldiers will be attending.

For more information, stills, screeners and contact information for the
filmmakers and soldiers,
get in touch with Dennis Doros at winterfilm@aol.com or (201) 767-3110.

At the Film Society of Lincoln Center, contact Graham Leggat at (212)
875-5416.


Dennis Doros
Milliarium Zero
PO Box 128
Harrington Park, NJ 07640
Phone: (201) 767-3110
Fax: (201) 767-3035
Email: winterfilm@aol.com
Website: http://www.wintersoldierfilm.com

--

[stilltrucking]

That is good news jimbo, clear the air, the election season has begun, 2008, I don't know who thought up Kerry's PT 109 strategy, such a sad victory for rove, he is the nice guy genuis that turns his adversaries strengths into week nees. Plenty of other swift boat vets supported Kerry, but they played this inter net to the max. Kerry outfoxed.

[jimboloco]

Let's hope rove gets his due, lots of folks evidently think it will wash out tho.

I have the video, intense. Spoke to Scott Camil on the phone last year a couple of times. He lives in Gainseville.