Blood Trail Screening in Austin at SXSW

Blood Trail: A must see film for photographers interested in the realities
of conflict coverage. BLOOD TRAIL premiers at the S x SW film festival in Austin Texas. Film screenings are on March 13, 16, and 18th. Monday's screening is at noon and Wednesday's is at 4:30pm. For schedule details click here.

Filmmakers Richard Parry and Vaughan Smith founders of London's Frontline Club might be present at screenings.

When filmmakers Richard Parry and Vaughan Smith first meet Robert King in
Sarajevo in 1993 he is a 23-year-old Art Photography graduate from Tennessee
with dreams of becoming the world's youngest Pulitzer Prize winner. Their
film Blood Trail, which follows King over the next 15 years though a number
of conflicts, is a strangely touching and welcome antidote to sanctimonious
portrayals of the lives of war photographers.

Robert comes across as a charming if callow rookie when we first meet him in
Bosnia. It is not that Robert lacks motivation. Like all photographers
who do this work there are many motives in play, some of which are not
entirely clear to him. On the one hand he sees war photography as a fast
track to fame, fortune and women, "the Robert Capa mystique" which he refers
to. But he also has a sense of mission even if it is somewhat inarticulately
defined. Early on he says that he feels called to be "a messenger."

Blood Trail catalogs not only Robert's developing career but also a candid
behind the scenes look at the ways that pressures and danger have changed
conflict coverage over the years. In Sarajevo, Chechnya and Russia Robert
has friends among the local population. By the time he gets to Iraq he has
grown into a weathered cynic who feels his ability to capture telling images
has been compromised by the security necessities of covering the war as a US
military embed. He can only wonder what the Iraqis he photographs might be
thinking and is vigilant about how they may react to him.

These are provocative insights, but perhaps what makes Blood Trail most
unique among the handful of films about war photography is it's willingness
to explore topics that journalists are often loathe to talk about except
perhaps amongst themselves. We see Robert reveal the problematic addictive
nature of covering crisis, the tendency to seek refuge in substance abuse or
sex, the emotional fallout whether it is flashbacks and PTSD or depression.
And then there are the ethical and moral dilemmas that one lives with in the
aftermath as a consequence of split second decisions made in combat. At one
point Robert asks himself: How many nameless bodies have I stepped over? It
is a question that calls to mind a harrowing scene that depicts a man still
alive, his legs blown off imploring the photographer and filmmakers for
help. What can they do? They move on. We get a glimpse of the unspeakable
horrors that the professional witness confronts as well as the burden of
decisions that haunt.

By the film's end Robert is a husband and a father. He is a "successful" war
photographer, but he is also unsure why he risks his life when so few people
who see his images can understand or really care about the people in the
scenes he documents. And yet like many soldiers who come home from battle he
seems to feel he has no choice but to return. This too should give us pause.

Review written by Donna DeCesare