Screening: We Went to War + Q&A

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with directors Michael Grigsby and Rebekah Tolley.

In 1970, director Michael Grigsby portrayed three young men returning home after spending a year at the frontline of the Vietnam War. The award-winning documentary I Was a Soldier focused on how David Johnson, Dennis Bolinger and Lamar Wyatt were trying to readjust to life in Texas – and was one of the first films to show the devastating impact of the war on soldiers who returned home.

Over 40 years later, Grigsby and co-director Rebekah Tolley return to Texas to pick up the stories of the three men. Merging past and present We Went to War is a contemplative, visual and touching film that reveals how much their experience of war shaped their lives.

With many young men and women returning home from different wars today, We Went to War sheds a sharp, but sensitive light on the long-lasting psychological impact the experience has on young veterans and their families.

Directors: Michael Grigsby and Rebekah Tolley
Duration: 77′
Year: 2012

Time Out – “One of Britain’s finest documentarists”

The Independent  – “His films are landmarks… from Girgsby back to Grierson runs an unbroken tradition in British documentary making: a passionate commitment to the poetry of everyday life.”

The Guardian – “I won’t say Michael Grigsby is too good for television. He might believe me and leave it. But he surely shines among the surrounding shoddy. The style of a good director is such that you do not need a credit title. You know. A Grigsby has a unique sense of stillness which is, paradoxically, most moving.”