alr

A Land for War

Streaming
Directed by Enid Baxter Ryce.
US, 2017, DCP, color, 50 min.

Filmed over a ten-year span, A Land for War captures the transformation of landscape over time and its deep-rooted connection to memory. Focusing on Fort Ord, a historic United States Army post located in coastal California, Ryce intertwines her own material with archival footage of the area from 1969, when the post served as a basic training site for drafted American soldiers during the Vietnam War. Layers of murals and graffiti art—painted by stationed soldiers and added to by civilians over the years—illustrate how the landscape itself serves as a memory stratum that encapsulates the lives of the people who once inhabited the grounds and the veterans who continue to reside in the area. The land undergoes a more dramatic effacement as demolition clears the way for modern housing and commercial developments. Through merging perspectives of space over time, Ryce reveals Fort Ord’s impact on the people and the land connected and engulfed by the post’s existence. – AV

Please visit watchhfa.eventive.org to reserve tickets and view the film.

Part of film series

Read more

Devour the Land: Cinema, landscape, history.

Current and upcoming film series

Read more

The Cold Heart is More Precious than Diamonds. The Cinema of Graham Greene

Read more

João César Monteiro, Poet-Provocateur

Read more

Marathon '77 All-Night Movie Marathon

Read more

Marie Antoinette and Friends, Three Films by Sofia Coppola

Read more

Nostalgia, A Harvard Undergraduate Cinematheque Program

Read more

The Adventures of Lotte Reiniger

Read more

The Human Condition

Read more

Great Expectations: British Postwar Cinema, 1945 – 1960

Read more

Visions of a City, Or A Weekend in San Francisco