New York, NY – On April 25 2016, Ryan Cunningham and The Colony Media launched a Kickstarter campaign for Trauma, an extraordinary new film that documents the heroism and struggles of a medevac unit in Afghanistan and their lives afterward. The team is currently looking to raise $50,000 so they can hire an editing team that will craft a powerful film from more than one hundred hours of astonishing footage.
“The very different men and women from the medevac missions – from family types to fierce individuals, unwavering cynics, flippant jokers and staunch faithfuls – are now spread right across America from New York to Louisiana, Texas, Idaho, Washington, Alabama, and California,” says Director Harry Sanna, “They’re pretty much everywhere. Whether still on military bases or in civilian life, they’ve all forged lives beyond who they were on that helicopter. And yet, they are all still there.”
Harry Sanna is Australian journalist and filmmaker who was based in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2011, visiting bases in the East and South of the country. In early 2011, Sanna was embedded with a C Company Dustoff, Mountain Division, 3-10 GSAB medevac unit at FOB Shank in Logar Province, Afghanistan. Sanna intensively filmed while living and flying alongside a Blackhawk medevac platoon, capturing daily life on base and on missions.
In 2014 and 2015, Sanna reconnected with the medics in their various hometowns and conducted frank interviews with them about their memories and also their success in integrating their experiences with their new jobs and home lives. The result is a candid and often moving portrayal of those individuals that offers insight into the challenges faced by many veterans. For Sanna, the purpose of the film was always, “to breathe some human complexity back into our go-to concept of a veteran.”
The costs involved in taking a film from footage to completed movie are significant, so New York based post production company Afterparty VFX has pledged to cover any additional post production costs beyond the money raised by Kickstarter to ensure that the film is completed.
“Harry has some wonderful ideas to help tell this story in a truly unique and insightful way. Some of those ideas are expensive,” comments Producer David Gaddie, “We are all very hopeful that our campaign exceeds the target so that Harry can complete his film exactly as he has imagined it.”
In exchange for pledging to the project, backers can gain access to a variety of rewards including a uniquely designed sticker showing your support for $15, behind-the-scenes videos and bonus material for $25, and much more. Backers can also pledge $35 for a digital copy of the documentary or $75 for a DVD or Blu-ray of Trauma signed by director Harry Sanna.
The film is due for completion at the end of 2016.
For more information, please visit the Kickstarter page here or contact the creator below.
300dpi images: please click this Dropbox link
All images © Harry Sanna
ABOUT THE COLONY MEDIA
The Colony Media is a New York based production company that develops and produces entertainment and content for film, television and web. The company creates and designs live action and immersive game engine based VR.
ABOUT HARRY SANNA
Harry Sanna (b. 1987) is a cross-media journalist with five years of international reporting experience. In this time, he has produced and written photographic features as well as video-based work for some of the news industry’s most highly regarded publications and broadcasters.
After completing a Bachelor’s degree in Media and Communications (Journalism) in Sydney, Australia, Harry based himself in New Delhi from 2008 to 2010, and has since then been more or less on the road. His work has taken him from Australia to India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan, Haiti, Afghanistan and the United States.
With experience in both spot-news coverage and longer-form written features, Harry’s work has been featured in prominent publications in Australia and the United States, including the Sydney Morning Herald and the Huffington Post. His work from Afghanistan has also appeared on CBS and PBS.
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Media Contact
Company Name: COLONY MEDIA
Contact Person: Steven Kelleher
Email: Steven@the-colony.com
Phone: 646 755-7373
Country: United States
Website: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/956531418/trauma-0