Bordering On Treason

In 2003, Lorna Tychostup, a single mother and photojournalist for a local arts magazine in New Paltz, NY knowingly risks her life, imprisonment, and a million dollar fine by traveling to Iraq under the threat of war.

She was on a mission to “bring back the face of the Iraqi people” to the American public, and returned with images of ordinary Iraqis that she hoped would sway people against the invasion. Her controversial voyage is challenged in a live television broadcast when FOX News lambastes her efforts as “villainous and bordering on treason,” and accuses her of “aiding and abetting the enemy… on the brink of war.”

Affected by the Iraqi people, after the invasion Lorna returns to Iraq intent on uncovering the real story. Embedding herself with soldiers and visiting Iraqis in all regions of Baghdad, including the outlying regions and squats, she seeks to find out how the war has changed Iraq. She travels without protection in local taxis and stays at small hotels rather than those within the green zone reserved for mainstream journalists. Her peers are brazen twenty-something male bloggers, some of whom get captured.

Returning to the US with stories she believes are not reaching Americans’ TV sets, Lorna presents her slide show. As she uncovers the experiences of Iraqis and American soldiers, she’s forced to question her original agenda; when she reports that some Iraqis tell her they like Bush and welcome the soldiers’ presence. Progressive radio station WBAI dismisses her. Lorna begins to question her own naive idealism and starts to challenge both the left and right’s stark, narrowly constructed political viewpoints on the war.

Despite her mixed reactions, Lorna maintains a bull-headed determination to share the stories and images she’s captured on her continued visits to Iraq. She drives cross-country, sometimes living out of her truck in order to present her photo exhibit and slide show. Her criteria for a show: anywhere that provides a platform, from cafes to campuses. By relaying her adventures, Lorna works to connect Americans and everyday Iraqis. Along the way she meets a range of Americans: students, soldiers, soldier’s families, and Iraqi-Americans.  They want to understand what’s really happening beyond the national media’s coverage of the war.

Over this time Lorna goes from 40-something to 50-something transforming from a small town mother seeing her children off to college into a seasoned war journalist. She completes her Masters in Global Affairs at NYU and by 2010 is working in Iraq as a full time journalist with a US AID organization focused on development and technology. Lorna is currently stationed in Baghdad.  Bombings often disrupt her compound; but she continues to risk her life to tell her stories.

Lorna’s story, as well as the stories of others that she crafts, raise larger questions about good and bad, left and right, Republican and Democrat – and where America and Iraq connect at this juncture in history.

ARTISTIC/DIRECTOR  STATEMENT:

This documentary began as a collective effort by San Tong, Jesse Epstein, and I along with a number of other NY based filmmakers, who like our subjects, wanted to know what was going on… We conceived of it as a character-driven narrative exploring various perspectives on the Iraq invasion.

After following several subjects, Lorna’s journey to confront the complexities in America and Iraq compelled us to focus on her story alone.  She questioned the lack of information on the news, the rush to war, and the divides between left and right. Indeed, while many of us felt paralyzed, overwhelmed and averted our gaze, Lorna refused to let the enemy be dehumanized nor the soldiers forgotten/ignored.

I became heavily, personally invested in the film. I became intimately involved in Lorna’s life and developed an affinity with her. She inspired me to keep looking at the war and at her. I realized that in order to tell her story, I had to wait patiently and allow it to take shape over time.

We filmed from the initial invasion through the most recent “withdrawal”. Her story has become a longitudinal retrospective on the past eight years of the war. Her photos and stories a conduit for Americans’ desire to connect with Iraqis. She helps illuminate the realities of a war often referred to as merely an “occupation,” and the emotional and political disconnect that Americans have experienced/expressed in relation to Iraq.

A combination of verité, personal journal, and interview footage takes viewers on an intimate exploration of the lives of the Iraqis and American soldiers Lorna encounters. In addition to the empathy her images invoke, her conversations, direct to camera, provide the audience with a personal connection to her subjects and her thought process. Mainstream news footage will combine with Lorna’s own reportage to provide the historical context and impetus for the personal stories she seeks out.

Obama recently called America’s role in Iraq one of the most “personal, emotional and global issues” today. Lorna’s impassioned, ideological shift – which we watch happen over eight years, offers viewers a unique, very personal and individual perspective on this historic period.