Nate von Zumwalt, Editorial Coordinator
Leading up to the 84th edition of the Academy Awards this Sunday, February 26, we’re profiling all seven of this year’s Sundance-supported Oscar nominees. Click here for the full list of nominees.
Hell and Back Again, directed by Danfung Dennis
Danfung Dennis’ gripping documentary tracks the physical and emotional recuperation of a U.S. Marine after narrowly surviving an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan. Emerging from a genre laden with war docs, Hell and Back Again finds originality in a narrative that hits extremely close to home and keenly examines the atrocities of war from a humanistic perspective. Dennis crafts a sobering film that juxtaposes the chaos of war with the normality of home, eventually revealing that the line between the two has become indelibly blurred.
- Danfung Dennis is a photojournalist turned filmmaker. Hell and Back Again is his debut feature film.
- Nominated for Best Documentary at the 2012 Oscars
- Winner of the World Cinema Jury Prize for Documentary and the World Cinema Cinematography Award for Documentary at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival
- Dennis’ still photographs have been published in Newsweek, TIME, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Le Figaro Magazine, Financial Times Magazine, Mother Jones, Der Spiegel, and The Wall Street Journal.
Click here to read Indiewire’s interview with the director.
