Documentary on Iraq War to Premiere on PBS

Aaron Aldridge - Knight Ridder/Tribune

Filmmaker Deborah Scranton has once again brought the Iraq War home for viewers with "Bad Voodoo's War" premiering on PBS.

"This film is more about the sit and wait game," Scranton said. "I want to bridge the disconnects."

Scranton is a ninth-generation Goshen resident who is known for her directorial debut "The War Tapes" which premiered at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival and won Best Documentary Feature.

"'The War Tapes' was very intimate," Scranton said. "It gives them credit and lets them tell the story."

"The War Tapes" went on to win Best International Documentary at the 2006 BritDoc Festival, was named an official selection at the Rome Film Festival and IDFA (International Documentary Festival Amsterdam) and was released to critical acclaim in more than 120 cities.

Scranton's signature style of "integrative filmmaking" stems from her commitment to use new technologies to empower people to tell their own stories. Both "Bad Voodoo's War" and "The War Tapes" were directed seamlessly through "virtual embed" with the troops-using e-mail and near-perpetual instant messaging with the soldiers as they filmed their very personal and vivid experiences on the ground.

"Bad Voodoo's War" tells the story of National Guard infantrymen who call themselves the Bad Voodoo Platoon who were deployed to Iraq in June as part of the American military surge.

Scranton captures a first-person account of the realities of war by giving the platoon members cameras to film the everyday aspects of war.

"It was a very conscious decision not to go to Iraq," Scranton said. "It's not an ego thing for me."

Platoon leader Sgt. 1st Class Toby Nunn is at the center of the documentary.

Nunn grew up in Terrace, northern British Columbia, just south of the Alaskan panhandle and was raised alone by his father, who had grown up on the prairies and worked in lumber camps from age 12 to provide for his family.

As a teenager, Nunn moved to the United States and joined the Army -- partly for the education benefits and partly because the Army reinforced the values of integrity and honor that his father had taught him growing up.

"You've got to be careful where you emotionally release as a leader," Nunn said. "You don't want your moment of weakness to cost another soldier a moment of strength."

After basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, he was sent to Fort Hood, Texas, joined a mechanized infantry unit, and then was deployed overseas to the Balkans where he first earned the nickname "Voodoo."

"I got a nickname back in the Balkans through an event where a Muslim and a Christian were arguing, and they felt like I might not be neutral," Nunn explained. "And I told them I didn't care either way what religion they were; it had nothing to do with mine. I told them I was Voodoo."

After the Balkans, Nunn was deployed again overseas to Korea, then to Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom I and II with a Stryker Brigade.

Nunn agreed to do the documentary for Scranton because he wanted people to know about a close friend and fellow soldier who was killed.

"Toby wanted to do this because of Jake Demand," Scranton said.

During the documentary Nunn recalled how his friend was killed: "Great guy, father of two of his own boys and then a little girl that he had adopted," Nunn said.

"He was one of my friends. He cared for people in a way that not many people ever have, especially with what it took for him to leave this Earth for some of us to stay. I haven't talked about that very often, so -- the guy took 18 rounds on the ramp of a Stryker, bled out on the scene so everybody else could get on the Stryker. Not many people do stuff like that. Ninety seconds, eight magazines, he's a real hero. Not many people know that, you know."

The Bad Voodoo Platoon is scheduled to come home in May and Scranton is still in contact with them and receives tapes at her Goshen home.

"I'm still in contact with them," Scranton said. "PBS is so awesome. They are giving us a Web site to follow them until they come home."

Scranton's desire to tell the story of the war through the eyes of those experiencing it is best defined by platoon team leader Sgt. Jean-Paul Borda: "The media writes what is going to sell," Borda said. "They're a business, too. We're not a business. We're just writing what we're doing. We've got nothing to sell. We've got nothing to lose."

----

More movie news

Copyright 2012 by Knight Ridder/Tribune