Just yesterday President Obama signed legislation in honor of Clay Hunt, one of far too many veterans who have committed suicide after returning from combat. The hope is that the bill will expand support and treatment for those suffering from PTSD.
Veteran counseling is the subject of "Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1," an Oscar-nominated documentary short that goes inside the offices of the only center in the U.S., which fields calls from veterans in crisis.
"Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1" was directed by Ellen Goosenberg Kent and produced by Dana Perry, and when the two joined us at The Frame, we asked them about what they would say were they to win the Oscar for Best Documentary Short, and about the challenging balance between getting great footage and the human consequences of that "great footage."
Interview Highlights:
Dana, as a documentary filmmaker, part of you must always be hoping to get that "great scene," but for this movie that would probably involve somebody having a suicidal thought or actually attempting suicide. So when you're watching the call center as a filmmaker, is part of you hoping that something dramatic happens, even if it could be something horrible in a veteran's life?
In terms of drama, sure, you want a life-or-death situation, but that's not what you want when it comes to humanity. So we looked to balance the relationship between the caller and the responder with how they do their work; how they coax the veteran to put down the gun, to step off the bridge, to put the pills away, et cetera.
Ellen, were there ever any times in the making of the film where people in the call center asked you to turn the cameras off? Or where you recorded a conversation that you decided was too personal to use in the film?
I wouldn't say that anyone ever asked us to turn the camera off, but there definitely were some responders who felt they couldn't concentrate as well if the camera was there. So they asked us not to film them at all. We made decisions that some of the calls that we taped were perhaps not as useful? We wanted to highlight the problem, but we also wanted to highlight how you talk to someone who's in crisis.
This is Dana. I also want to jump in on the fact that you never hear the caller in the film, and that's for privacy reasons. It wouldn't be anonymous if suddenly your phone call to a crisis hotline was aired on HBO or in a theater. So that made it that much more challenging, and we really had to depend on the parroting of the responder saying, "So you have a gun. So are you home alone?" We're picking up the content of the conversation via the responder, but you actually never hear the caller themselves.
Ellen, the audience for a documentary short is not large, but the audience for the Academy Awards is huge. A lot of people think you'll win the Oscar, so if you do get to go up there and make your acceptance speech, what are you going to say about this issue to that audience?
There's no doubt in my mind that I will be expressing gratitude to the responders who gave us access to these very intimate, life-or-death conversations, and to the veterans who were willing to pick up the phone and make those calls. They're the living examples that we wanted to have.
Dana?
I am a survivor of suicide. I lost my adolescent son, who was bipolar, and I actually made a film about it at the time. And what I found is that the best prevention for suicide is a discussion — an open, loud, discussion. Not whispering, not keeping it in the dark, not feeling like it's a shame upon the family or a question of character.
People get sick with cancer, and sometimes they live and sometimes they die; I would compare someone with PTSD, bipolar illness, or whatever else it is, with a serious physical illness. This is real, and for my part, I'll take any opportunity I can to remind people that suicide can and should be talked about. That's the one solid way we know to contribute to prevention.
"Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1" is currently available on HBO GO and HBO ON DEMAND, and it's also playing in theaters around the country as part of the Oscar-nominated shorts program.