Documentary Edited By Temple Student In The Running For Oscar Nomination
By Cherri Gregg
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Academy Award nominations are set to be announced Tuesday, and a documentary edited by a grad student at Temple University is on the short list.
Chosen out of 124 films, "Hell and Back Again" is one of 15 on the short list for Best Documentary Feature. The documentary chronicles the life of Sgt. Nathan Harris, a 25-year-old Marine, who is deployed to Afghanistan, shot in the hip and comes home.
Temple grad student Fiona Otway says her role in the process was quite complicated. It took weeks to watch more than 100 hours of footage. She spent hours collaborating with the film's director, Danfung Dennis, who she says lived with the Marines in Afghanistan for six weeks.
"Danfung and I spent a lot of time talking about his experience being embedded in Afghanistan and what he had witnessed over there."
Otway says she is thrilled that the film could get an Oscar nod, but she is more focused on what it shows and teaches the world.
"It's an incredibly visceral and intimate portrait of what it's like to go to war and come home again. The footage is absolutely stunning and unlike what many people have seen before. It gives you an intimate view of a world that you may not see otherwise."
Hell and Back Again currently in theatres.
