Filmmaker Ellen Spiro presents Body of War
Sponsor: Film and Media Studies and War News Radio
When:April 10
Activist filmmaker Ellen Spiro will present the award-winning
documentary Body of War on April 10 at 7pm in Lang Performing Arts
Center Cinema, Swarthmore College.
Body of War is an intimate feature documentary about the true face of
war. Tomas Young, 25 years old, was paralyzed from a bullet to his spine
– wounded after serving in Iraq for less than a week. Body of War is
Tomas’ coming home story as he comes to terms with his disability and
finds his own unique and passionate voice against the war. The film is
produced and directed by Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro, and features two
original songs by Pear Jam’s Eddie Vedder.
Body of War was named Best Documentary by the National Board of Review,
and John Anderston, writing in the Washington Post, calls it
“Architecturally sound, emotionally ravaging… a ferocious film.”
Ellen Spiro is a long-time video activist whose works including DiAna’s
Hair Ego (about DiAna, an AIDS-educator and hairdresser), Greetings From
Out Here (lesbian and gay culture in the South, and Troop 1500, Troop
1500 (about a Girl Scout troop that unites daughters with mothers who
are serving time for serious crimes, made with Karen Bernstein) and,
now, Body of War (with Phil Donahue). Spiro, Associate Professor at the
University of Texas in Austin, is the recipient of a Guggenheim and two
Rockefeller Fellowships and numerous other distinctions.
This event is presented by Swarthmore’s Program in Film and Media
Studies and cosponsored by War News Radio, and made possible by the
Department of English Literature’s Owen Moon Fund.
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