Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at Sundance Film Festival 2010, Restrepo chronicles the deployment of a platoon of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley. The movie focuses on a remote 15-man outpost, Restrepo, named after a platoon medic who was killed in action. It was considered one of the most dangerous postings in the U.S. military. This is an entirely experimental film: the cameras never leave the valley; there are no interviews with generals or diplomats. The only goal is to make you feel as if you have just been through a 94-minute deployment. This is war, full stop. The conclusions are up to you. Award winning photojournalist Tim Hetherington and journalist/author Sebastian Junger set out to "capture the experience of combat, boredom and fear through the eyes of the soldiers themselves. Their lives were our lives: we did not sit down with their families, we did not interview Afghans, we did not explore geopolitical debates. Soldiers are living and fighting and dying at remote outposts in Afghanistan in conditions that few Americans back home can imagine. Their experiences are important to understand, regardless of one's political beliefs. Beliefs can be a way to avoid looking at reality. This is reality."
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