New and Emmy-Nominated Documentaries Featured in Tribute to Veterans

On Memorial Day, May 30 at 9:30 p.m. (following the National Memorial Day Concert from Washington, DC at 8 p.m.), Rhode Island PBS presents the television premiere of War Journal: The Incredible World War II Escape of Major Damon "Rocky" Gause. The film, by World War II Foundation and Tim Gray Media, tells the true story of one of the most impossible escapes in World War II. American airman Damon "Rocky" Gause escaped a prison camp on the Bataan Peninsula in 1942, swam to nearby Corregidor Island, and then sailed with U.S. serviceman William Lloyd Osborne in a leaky 20-foot fishing boat from the Philippines to Australia. Fifty-two days and 3,200 miles later, the two Americans reached freedom. Despite facing typhoons, constant threats from Japanese ships, submarines and airplanes, a lack of water and food, and even a visit to the world’s largest leper colony, both Gause and Osborne survived to recount their harrowing ordeal.

Filmed in Bataan, Corregidor, and in Manila, the 90-minute documentary is narrated by three-time Emmy Award-winning daytime soap opera star Chandler Massey. Actor Kyle Chandler (NBC’s Friday Night Lightsand the films Argo, Zero Dark Thirty and Carol) provides the voice of Rocky Gause, with Tom Kane voicing William Lloyd Osborne. Using the journals of Gause and Osborne, archival footage and photos, and interviews with Gause's relatives and Army associates, War Journal chronicles the unimaginable tale of two American servicemen who survived one of the deadliest conflicts in World War II.

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Also in May, Rhode Island PBS is pleased to encore two World War II Foundation and Tim Gray Media documentaries recently nominated for Boston / New England Emmy Awards. These two films will share 10 p.m. Thursdays in May with two more documentaries from the same award-winning filmmakers Tim Gray and Jim Karpeichik. 

The first Emmy-nominated work airs Thursday, May 5. Omaha Beach: Honor and Sacrifice recalls the devastating events surrounding the landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944, as well as the touching reunion 70 years later. Read the story here.



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On Thursday, May 12, Eagles of Mercy tells the story of two American 101st Airborne (Screaming Eagles) medics caught in a church in Normandy, France during the opening hours of D-Day. Outside a savage battle raged all around them. The church changed hands several times with American and German forces over-running the village of Angoville-au-Plain.

Inside the small church the wounded wore both Allied and Axis uniforms and civilian clothing. The American medics, Robert Wright and Kenneth Moore of the 2nd battalion, 501st PIR, treated all who were brought into the 12th century Norman church, no matter whether they were friend or foe.

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On Thursday, May 19, Escape in the Pacific recalls the events of April 4, 1943, when ten American prisoners of war and two Filipino convicts executed a daring escape from one of Japan’s most notorious prison camps. The prisoners were survivors of the infamous Bataan Death March and the Fall of Corregidor, and the prison from which they escaped was surrounded by an impenetrable swamp and reputedly escape-proof. Theirs was the only successful group escape from a Japanese POW camp during the Pacific war. Escape from Davao is the story of one of the most remarkable incidents in the Second World War and of what happened when the Americans returned home to tell the world what they had witnessed.

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The second 2015 Emmy-nominated film from the World War II Foundation and Tim Gray Media airs Thursday, May 26 at 10 p.m. America St. Nick describes the special 1944 Christmas party organized by American soldiers in the small town of Wiltz in Luxembourg for the children - for all the townsfolk - who had not been able to celebrate their traditional St. Nicholas Day in nearly 5 years because of the war.



National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences - New England Chapter will announce this year's Emmy winners during its award ceremony on June 4.

Local Filmmaker Premieres My Father's Vietnam at RIIFF

My Father’s Vietnam (79 min., USA, 2015), a new documentary film by Providence-based filmmaker Soren Sorensen, makes its world premiere at the 19th Annual FLICKERS: Rhode Island International Film Festival (RIIFF) on August 6, 2015 at 2:45 p.m. at URI’s Paff Theatre, 80 Washington Street in Downtown Providence. There is an admission charge of $10.00. Rhode Island PBS announces this screening because of our long-standing relationship and respect for Soren's excellent work. We celebrate his premiere at the RIIFF and hope to bring this important film to Rhode Island PBS later this year.

Production of My Father's Vietnam began with a 2006 conversation between the filmmaker and his father, Peter Sorensen, who enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1968, a year when American troop levels in Vietnam were growing at the same rate support for the War on the homefront was shrinking.

“For my generation, sons and daughters of the ‘baby boomers,’ enlisting in the military has always been a choice,” said Soren Sorensen. “So, 40 years later, the idea of enlisting during the Vietnam War, in a divisive political climate not unlike what we’re seeing now, seemed to me sort of inconsistent with common sense.”

He added, “I was a bit naïve."

The film features the stories of two men who served with Peter Sorensen and who were killed in Vietnam in 1970. For filmmaker Soren Sorensen, the production process—which included shoots in Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, and Washington, DC—was an educational experience and a chance to get to know his father better.

“I came to realize that guys like my father didn’t really have a choice,” he said. “The romantic hindsight fantasy of burning your draft card and going to Canada had consequences related to your family, community, and financial situation that made it all but impossible.

“Add to that, the World War II generation looming large in history and culture. I think people wanted to live up to their parents’ expectations.”

The filmmaker says the process gave him a deeper understanding of the military and strengthened his relationship with his father.

“How could it not?” he said. “When you fly across the country and interview a complete stranger in Arizona about his experiences in Vietnam and he says, as my father says, ‘I’ve never had a conversation like this before,’ you realize just how silently Vietnam veterans have carried the physical and psychological burdens of that war.”

He added, “Not only do you learn a tremendous amount, but you also gain an overwhelming sense of respect and gratitude.”

Peter Sorensen, the filmmaker’s father and one of the film’s primary subjects, said, “The film is more than the story of a father and a son. It's emblematic of the deleterious and ripple effect armed conflicts such as the Vietnam War have on entire families and ultimately the nation.”

Featuring never-before-seen photographs and 8mm footage of the era, My Father’s Vietnam sheds new light on a disturbing chapter of American history that continues to deeply impact those who lived through it.

The production turned out to be a multi-year odyssey for Soren Sorensen—who also produced, wrote, and edited the film—and director of photography Dan Akiba.

“Dan was the one who encouraged me to shoot the interview with my father in the first place,” said Soren Sorensen. “If it wasn’t for him, I might not have made the film at all.”  

Soren Sorensen specializes in documentary film, television, and web content with an emphasis on branded content, arts and culture, oral history, and advocacy for nonprofit organizations. His clients include Families First RI, Montessori Community School of Rhode Island, Part of the Oath, and The Picture of Children’s Health. Sorensen is a member of the adjunct faculty in Film Studies at Rhode Island College and Screen Studies at Clark University. He currently teaches directing, sound recording, and sound design at New York Film Academy’s summer program at Harvard University.

On August 6, 2015, My Father’s Vietnam will be screened after Neal Mercier’s 2015 short film Amaryllis (12 min., USA, 2015), another world premiere by a Rhode Island filmmaker.

For information about the Rhode Island International Film Festival, please visit www.riiff2015.sched.org.

updated August 6, 2015