About the film
Awards
SynopsisJosé Antonio Gutierrez was one of the 300,000 soldiers sent by US Armed Forces to war in Iraq. A few hours after the war began, his picture was broadcast all over the world: he was the first American soldier to be killed in the war. He was there as a so-called 'green-card soldier' — one of approximately 32,000, fighting in the ranks of the US Armed Forces for a foreign country. 
The film tells the moving and nearly unbelievable story of a one-time street kid from Guatemala, who headed north along the Pan-American Highway — full of hopes and desires for a better future — ultimately to die an American hero far from home. Searching for the images and stories that made up this life, we set out to retrace José Antonio’s path — from Guatemala through Mexico and into the USA. This story is told by the people who knew José Antonio: his friends from the street, the social workers at the orphanage, his sister, his foster family, his comrades at Camp Pendleton in the United States Marines. But the narrators of the film are also the people we encountered as we were repeating José Antonio’s odyssey from the world of the poor to the world of the rich. People who day after day join the endless stream of emigrants — with no identity, no papers — equipped with nothing but their ability to work and their willingness to turn their backs on home and family forever. José Antonio’s story is no adventurer’s tale. It is the story of an attempt to survive — on both sides of the world. Director’s Statement
At the outset of my research I held two photos of José Antonio Gutierrez in my hand: in one, taken shortly before his death in Iraq, he was wearing the uniform of a US Marine. The other is a portrait of a child, in black and white, the day he was taken in by an orphanage in Guatemala City — during the time of the civil war. What was the story in between? What identity was concealed beneath the surface of these two moments captured on film? In this curiosity my search began, the work of capturing on film the traces of this Guatemalan street-child, who spent his entire, brief life looking for a survival strategy, and finally, having barely arrived in his land of dreams, fell as a hero in Iraq. Beyond the task of narrating José Antonio’s biography, my concern was to offer a description of social conditions that would draw attention to the fates of people throughout Pan-America who are searching for a more dignified future. The thematic frame of the film — indicated by the two photos described above — is war: the civil war in Guatemala and the war in Iraq. “Things can never be the same”, says Miguel Perez, like José Antonio a US Marine, after watching his comrade go through his death throes in the field hospital in Iraq. Conveyed in the intimate testimony of this tragic encounter is an idea of what war does to a person. - Heidi Specogna CreditsThe Short Life of José Antonio Gutierrezwith 
Screenwriter and director: Heidi Specogna Narrators Music: Hans Koch Sync supervision: Heinz Freitag Assistant editor: Lisa Friedrichsdorf Line producer: Cornelia Kellers Commissioning editors Archives A co-production by Funding provided by In co-production with ZDF and with Released in North America by Atopia Distribution © 2006 TAG/TRAUM-PS-Specogna-ZDF |