Documentary Production and Distribution News

Documentary "Where Soldiers Come From" by Heather Courtney Screens at Festival

By StudentFilmmakers.com
posted Aug 2, 2011, 12:02

Filmmaker Heather Courtney's documentary "Where Soldiers Come From" recently screened at the Traverse City Film Festival in Traverse City, Michigan this summer. From a snowy small town in Northern Michigan to the mountains of Afghanistan and back, “Where Soldiers Come From” follows the four-year journey of childhood friends and their town, forever changed by a faraway war. At its heart a story about growing up, the film is an intimate look at the young men who fight our wars, the families and town they come from, and the everyday struggles of their return.


(Photo: Filmmaker Heather Courtney behind the camera. www.wheresoldierscomefrom.com)

Heather Courtney has directed and produced several documentary films including award-winners Letters from the Other Side and Los Trabajadores. With her current film, Where Soldiers Come From, she was a Sundance Edit and Story Lab fellow, and a 2009 recipient of the prestigious United States Artists fellowship. Her films have been funded by a Fulbright Fellowship, ITVS, the Sundance Documentary Fund, the Paul Robeson Fund, and the Texas Filmmakers Production Fund. She was recently named one of Film Independent's Top 10 Filmmakers to Watch. Letters from the Other Side was the Closing Night film at the Slamdance Film Festival in January 2006, screened at numerous festivals around the world, and was broadcast on over 60 PBS stations. Los Trabajadores won the Audience Award at SXSW and the International Documentary Association David Wolper award, and was broadcast nationally on the PBS series Independent Lens. She was a co-director on Roger Weisberg's Critical Condition, which aired nationally on POV in Fall 2008, and is a member of the acclaimed film distribution cooperative New Day Films. Prior to receiving her MFA in Film Production, she spent eight years writing and photographing for the United Nations and several refugee and immigrant rights organizations, including in the Rwandan refugee camps after the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Heather is from the beautiful Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and is proud to call herself a Yooper.

 

Resources:

http://www.wheresoldierscomefrom.com/