FESTIVALS:
*Dok.Fest Münich (Germany)
* Göteborg International Film Festival (Sweden)
* IDFA (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
* It's All True (Sao Paulo, Brazil)
* Jerusalem Film Festival (Israel)
* RIDM-Rencontres Internationales du documentaire de Montréal (Canada)
* Sydney Film Festival (Australia)
* TRT (Oran/Ankara, Turkey)
* Visions du Réel (Nyon, Switzerland)
* ZagrebDox (Croatia)
* DocPoint – Helsinki Documentary Film Festival (Finland)
* Moscow International Film Festival (Russia)
* Guth Gafa Documentary Festival (Co. Meath, Ireland)
* Belfast Film Festival (Northern Ireland.)
* DocumentaMadrid (Spain)
* Full Frame Documentary Film Festival (Durham, USA)
* DOXA Documentary Film Festival (Vancouver, BC, Canada)
* Dokufest (Kosovo)
* San Francisco International Film Festival (USA)
* Human Rights Arts & Film Festival (HRAFF) (Melbourne, Australia)
* Human Rights Watch Film Festival (New York, NY, USA)
* Docudays UA (Kharkiv, Ukraine)
* True/False Film Fest (Columbia, MO, USA)
* Istanbul Film Festival (Turkey)
* Open City Docs (London, UK)
* Documentary Fortnight (New York, USA)
* Docs Against Gravity Film Festival (Poland)
* Rendezvous with Madness Film Festival (Toronto, Canada)
* Erasmus Documentary Film Festival (Jakarta, Indonesia)
* Ambulante Colombia (Bogotá, Colombia)
* Kriterion Filmtheater (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
* DocPoint Tallin (Estonia)
* COLCOA - City of Lights, City of Angels (USA)
* FaitoDOCfestival (Italy)
* FOKAL - Fondation Connaissance et libertés (Haïti)

AWARDS:
* Special Jury Recognition - San Francisco International Film Festival
The jury noted: “Of Men and War makes us understand the horrors of war without ever showing us a single frame of battle, offering access to interior psychologies most viewers have never seen before in a tightly structured, beautifully edited, minimalist piece of nonfiction.”
* IDFA 2014 - VPRO Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary





- 2014 European Film Awards - Nominated in the European Documentary category

Of Men and War

Category |Conflicts, Health, Psychology, Social Issues
Year | 2014
Country | France - Switzerland
Running time | 140' - 82'
Format | HD
Production | Alice Films, Louise Productions
Director | Laurent Bécue-Renard


Anger consumes a dozen combat vets long after their return from the front. The warriors in Of Men and War have come home to the United States, but their minds are stuck out on the battlefield. Like figures from a Greek tragedy, all have traumatic memories that haunt them to this day. Ghosts and echoes of the war fill their lives. Threats seem to spring out from everywhere. Wives, children, and parents bear the brunt of their fractured spirits.

At The Pathway Home, a first-of-its-kind PTSD therapy center, the film's protagonists resolve to end the ongoing destruction. Their therapist is a Vietnam vet himself, helping the young men forge meaning from their trauma. Over years of therapy, Of Men and War explores their grueling paths to recovery, as they attempt to make peace with themselves, their past, and their families.

REVIEWS : Following the theatrical release in France

PRESS IMAGES: (click to preview)

       

TRAILER :




Director and Producer Laurent Bécue-Renard .

In 1995 and 1996, while living in Sarajevo during the siege, he served as editor-in-chief of the magazine Sarajevo Online and published a series of short stories called The Sarajevo Chronicles.

After the conflict, he began exploring war’s enduring impact on three widows at a rural therapy center. The documentary he wrote, directed, and produced about them, War-Wearied (De guerre lasses), screened at dozens of festivals and received the Berlin International Film Festival’s Peace Film Award, among others.

Shifting focus to young men returning from battles in faraway lands, Bécue-Renard continues to explore war’s psychological aftermath with Of Men and War, the second volume of his Genealogy of Wrath trilogy.

Presse - Theatrical release Of men and war



FIGARO
Men and war l'impossible réinsertion des soldats revenus du front/">

LA CROIX
"Un choc (...) D'une grande rigueur, frappant et émouvant sans être sensationnaliste ni voyeur."

L'HUMANITÉ
"Ce documentaire sur des combattants américains dont la guerre a brisé le psychisme est une arme de paix."

TÉLÉRAMA
"Sobre et bouleversant, ce film dit la nécessité vitale de la parole, mais aussi de l'urgence à entendre. En creux, il est question de notre responsabilité à tous : rester sourd aux cris de ces soldats cassés, c'est accepter de vivre à côté de grenades dégoupillées."

NOUVEL OBS
"Jamais encore le cinéma n’avait approché d’aussi près la réalité du stress post-traumatique, n’avait filmé avec une telle attention les anciens combattants aux prises avec leurs démons et leur culpabilité."

LE MONDE
Laurent Bécue-Renard nous cueille dès l'ouverture d'"Of Men and War"

LES INROCKS
"Le film de Bécue-Renard est ample et beau parce qu’il s’attache avec patience à la bouleversante figure de l’homme blessé, sans jamais forcer la main."

LE POINT
"Rarement on avait avec autant d'attention, de rigueur montré en acte ce ressenti de l'homme à fleur de peau qui tente de recoller les morceaux. Chaque scène est un suspense. Un happening, dans les mots, les silences, les corps."

LA VIE
"Un documentaire exceptionnel, qui jusqu’au bout refuse l’émotion facile, se tient du côté de l’écoute et non du jugement"

LE MONDE
"Une acuité et une proximité remarquables (...) une clarté psychologique saisissante"

À VOIR À LIRE
"Une odyssée humaine périlleuse, filmée avec justesse et empathie (...) une œuvre d’une force bouleversante"