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Burlington Film Examiner Review
Finding Our Voices: a documentary from VT filmmaker Holly Stadtler
Q: What do a congressman, a high school teacher, a reverend, and a diplomat have in common?
A: They are all the subject of a new documentary from executive producer Holly Stadtler, writer/director Victoria Hughes, and coordinating producer/cinematographer Laurel Jensen.
Finding Our
Voices: Stories of American
Dissent contains interviews with these
men and women and several others from equally
disparate professions who have one thing alike:
they have all put their reputations and social
standing at risk by speaking out against the
war in Iraq..jpg)
If it wasn’t apparent from the film’s title, the narration by the eloquent Martin Sheen makes it clear where the filmmakers’ sympathies lie. This is impassioned filmmaking by people who fiercely believe in the viewpoints of their interviewees. It makes no attempt to provide a balanced look at the past six years of America’s involvement in the Middle East and is an outright condemnation of the foreign policies of the Bush Administration.
Thus we learn the story of John Brady Kiesling, a diplomat who resigned his post at the U.S. Embassy in Athens in protest over the impending invasion of Iraq, but what of the stories of the men and women who remained as ambassadors of this country despite ideological differences with the administration in power?
We see interviews with a pair of former soldiers, one of whom was sentenced to a year in prison for going AWOL during a stateside furlough rather than return to a war he didn’t believe in, but we are not provided the opportunity to hear the opinions of military personnel who have continued to serve their country overseas throughout the conflict in Iraq.
Despite its focus on the Iraq War, the film is really about dissention itself and the importance of a dialectic in our system of democracy. Finding Our Voices reminds us that our country was founded on ideals of dissention and asks the same pertinent questions that were raised of the status quo throughout our country’s history up to the more recent protests of the Vietnam era.
Yet I’m not certain this film will inspire dialogue with the far right or even with moderate conservatives. The person who watches The O’Reilly Factor or listens religiously to Rush Limbaugh’s radio show would likely spend about thirty seconds watching this film on a local PBS station before reaching for the remote and perhaps uttering a curse or two.
But it is films like this that allow American citizens to have a continued voice in our government. To take the example of John Brady Kiesling, twenty years ago his career as a public servant may have been over when he chose to resign his post. But through the Internet and other forms of alternative media such as this independent film, he has continued to be a spokesman for change.
It also allows a mother like Sue Niederer an opportunity to talk publicly about her personal loss. Her son, Seth Dvorin, was an Army lieutenant who returned home on leave disillusioned about America’s role in Iraq. But he went back to the fighting out of a sense of duty to the men under his command.
In February 2004, just three weeks later, he was killed in action. As a tribute, a park bench has been built in his honor on the spot he wanted to be married. It’s a small thing, but it means so much to a mother who built her whole life around her son. Hopefully the catharsis of the interviews here will allow her to someday come to grips with her grief and to recognize the noble sacrifice her son made for his country.
I hope this film will be able to find an audience around the country and that its tales of dissent haven’t come too late with a new administration in the White House and a timetable from President Obama to withdraw troops from Iraq already in place.
These are stories that deserve a chance to be heard.
Link to a review from an online film critic: