Year at Danger

Post-screening discussion moderated by Marcy Garriott 

Nine days after getting married, Steve Metze found out he was being deployed as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Metze, a West Point graduate, Desert Storm veteran, and documentary filmmaker, decided to pack a camera and document his year in Iraq.

Metze gets closer to his subjects than even the most embedded reporter. The film is an objective look at deployed National Guard soldiers. There are no politics on the front line, only personalities. Metze captures all of them in a film that combines humor with the, often grim, realities of a war-torn country and the brave soldiers who live there.

Steve Metze served in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm and was deployed to Bosnia and Croatia as part of Operation Joint Endeavor. He completed his MFA in Film and Video production from the University of Texas at Austin in 1997. Most recently, he directed UBER GOOBER, a feature-length documentary he directed about gamers, which won the Bronze Remi at Worldfest Houston in 2004.

As a screenwriter, editor, and director, Don Swaynos has worked on a variety of projects including narrative films, documentaries, commercials, and music videos. In 2005, Don was awarded a Gold Addy Award for the animated advertisement Austin Film Festival: ?Uhhh.