THE SHORT LIFE OF JOSÉ ANTONIO GUTIERREZ

DAS KURZE LEBEN DES JOSÉ ANTONIO GUTIERREZ

Heidi Specogna

MONDAY JANUARY 15 12NOON CASTRO

A green-card soldier and one of 32,000 foreign-born US military personnel shipped to the war with Iraq, José Antonio Gutierrez had a dubious distinction: He was the war’s first casualty. Filmmaker Heidi Specogna commemorates a young man who triumphed over adversity to dream big dreams, in this memorial that lingers long after the credits roll, and shatters the government’s characterization of an illegal immigrant who wanted nothing more than to serve as a US Marine. Gutierrez grew up as a street-smart, glue-sniffing kid on the mean streets of Guatemala City, abandoned by his mother after the family fled the CIA-backed forces that killed 200,000 indigenous Guatemalans. A remarkable individual is revealed through interviews with orphanage staff, social workers, friends and fellow soldiers. He was born in one war and killed in another, yet his spirit flourished. One green-card soldier who is nameless no more. — G. Cahill courtesy of Mill Valley Film Festival

IN PERSON Rainer Hoffmann

Co-sponsored by DOC FILM INSTITUTE

PURCHASE TICKET

Country
Germany
Year
2006
Run Time
35mm, 90 min, color
Spanish, English and German with
English subtitles
Camera
Rainer Hoffmann
Screenwriter
Heidi Specogna
Erica Harzer
Printsource
TAG/TRAUM Filmproduktion Köln
Email
Info@tagtraum.de
Awards
Sundance Film Festival:
Grand Jury Prize.

Director

Heidi Specogna
was born in 1959 in Switzerland. From 1982 to 1988, she studied Directing at the German Film & Television Academy in Berlin. Also a lecturer in Documentary Filmmaking at the Film Academy Baden-Wuerttemberg, her films include: DIE BEICHTE (short, 1983), DAS INDIANERKIND (short, 1985), TANIA LA GUERRILLERA (documentary, 1991), DECKNAME ROSA (documentary, 1993), KAPRUN (documentary, 2002) and ZEIT DER ROTEN NELKEN (documentary, 2006).