Anger consumes a dozen combat vets long after their return from the front. The warriors in Of Men and War have come home to the United States, but their minds are stuck out on the battlefield. Like figures from a Greek tragedy, all have traumatic memories that haunt them to this day. Ghosts and echoes of the war fill their lives. Threats seem to spring out from everywhere. Wives, children, and parents bear the brunt of their fractured spirits.
At The Pathway Home, a first-of-its-kind PTSD therapy center, the film's protagonists resolve to end the ongoing destruction. Their therapist is a Vietnam vet himself, helping the young men forge meaning from their trauma. Over years of therapy, Of Men and War explores their grueling paths to recovery, as they attempt to make peace with themselves, their past, and their families.

Direction: Laurent Bécue-Renard

Script: Laurent Bécue-Renard

Production: Laurent Bécue-Renard, Isidore Bethel

Cinematography: Camille Cottagnoud

Editing: Isidore Bethel, Sophie Brunet, Charlotte Boigeol

Sound: Cyril Bécue

Original Score: Kudsi Erguner

Cast: None None

Original Title: OF MEN AND WAR

Original Language: English

Film Production Countries: France, Switzerland

Website: www.ofmenandwar.com

Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/ofmenandwar

Statement of the Director/s
The filmmaker secured exclusive and unprecedented access to bear witness and become part of the lives of 12 new veterans and their families. He traced their journeys through 14 months in residential therapy and more than four years of the veterans’ family life. During and after therapy, Of Men and War seeks to depict the aftermath of war through the lens of trauma therapy.
Of Men and War takes place at The Pathway Home, founded by veteran therapist Fred Gusman in Yountville, California. For the duration of production, director Laurent Bécue-Renard was granted full access to the facility, where, over five months of quiet observation, he gained the trust of the veterans and their therapist. Only then did Bécue-Renard begin filming every aspect of the veterans’ lives – including their intense trauma therapy sessions.
The therapeutic process allowed soldiers to grasp what they did, endured, and witnessed – and to understand how those experiences mold who they are today. PTSD can be neither cured nor forgotten, but, in articulating trauma, the warriors can work to find their way forward through the pain.
Bécue-Renard’s camera played a significant role in the soldiers’ therapy, as they came to perceive the filming itself as an additional glimmer of hope. Consciously or not, the veterans began to sense that voicing their brutal experiences might uncover deeper meaning; through the film, their stories might contribute to a greater public consciousness of the hardships veterans confront long after the war’s end.
Bécue-Renard filmed the soldiers speaking for the first time ever about their experiences on the front lines. After each of the protagonists graduated therapy, the filmmaker continued detailing their return home to families who suffered through the war alongside their husbands, sons, and fathers. Over ten years in the making, Of Men and War offers a unique opportunity for veterans to tell their stories - for themselves, for each other, and for us.

Biography of the Director/s
Laurent Bécue-Renard is a French director and producer.
In 1995 and 1996, while living in Sarajevo during the siege, he served as editor-in-chief of the magazine Sarajevo Online and published a series of short stories called The Sarajevo Chronicles.
After the conflict, he began exploring war’s enduring impact on three widows at a rural therapy center. The documentary he wrote, directed, and produced about them, War-Wearied (De guerre lasses), screened at dozens of festivals and received the Berlin International Film Festival’s Peace Film Award, among others.
Shifting focus to young men returning from battles in faraway lands, Bécue-Renard continues to explore war’s psychological aftermath with Of Men and War, the second volume of his Genealogy of Wrath trilogy.

World Sales:
CAT&Docs
Catherine Le Clef
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Paris, 75004, France
E-Mail: [email protected]
Phone: +33 1 44 61 77 48
Website: http://www.catndocs.com/

Press:
Eva Simonet
Eva Simonet
Paris
Paris, 75008, France
E-Mail: [email protected]
Phone: +33 6 62 41 06 16