Pvt. Ravel's Bolero

Multiple award winning. 10/26/23:I just added up all my Official Selections and Awards world wide
Official Selections - 78
Award Wins - 87 Time to retire this from from the festival circuit once active festivals have completed. Cheers! Sláinte!

"Pvt. Ravel's Bolero", is an anti-war, "filmic poem" and historical documentary, wrapped in WWI and the music of Maurice Ravel. It is based upon the poem of the same name by author and filmmaker, JZ Murdock. From LgN Productions,. Completed January 2022.

It is a film about a man who was once France's "world's greatest composer", Maurice Ravel's time in WWI as a truck driver. The poem is a musician/soldier's fantasy about creating his "Bolero" while in the trenches, and the effect it could have had upon all involved...living, and dead.

When WWI began, Maurice Ravel had a desire to serve, but also to experience adventure. He signed up. "Pvt. Ravel's Bolero", is also about Ravel's most famous musical piece, "Bolero". This film asks, "What if he had written it during his experiences in, "The Great War". Which was how that war was referred to until people found a need to number Earth's World Wars.

This film is also an "experience", presenting how war affects people. Just as war is often too fast to "read", or to assimilate at times, the viewer will find the experience moving too quickly, serving up too much, too fast. Or they may find what they see & hear is not beautiful, not perfect, as they are used to in documentaries. But not necessarily because they are too graphic to behold. There are scenes shown in this film that have likely never seen a public audience before this. Because they are not perfect, or pristine, and thus never used.

For such is War.

I'd like to share something...
Among festivals submitted to was Symbiotic Film Festival in a Ukraine. A Russian Film Festival (name withheld to protect the innocent. It just happened that way.
The day Russia began its illegal invasion of Ukraine (2/23/2022) Symbiotic notified me of my Official Selection for our film, "Gumdrop" a short horror.
It was bittersweet. I responded thanking them and wishing them to be safe. They briefly responded: "Thank you for your kind words..."
Four days later on 2/26/2022, the Russian festival notified me they chose "Pvt. Ravel's Bolero" as an Official Selection.
They then nominated it as, "Best War Film".
As it's an antiwar film, I took that all as sign of potential dissent to their government's invasion of Ukraine.
I notified Symbiotic Fest of this the same day, hoping to share some support from a Russian festival.
It was expected, but chilling...that I did not hear back from them.

Thank you.

A companion Outtakes reel (as noted at top of the end credits at film's end) are available here:
https://filmfreeway.com/projects/2376181

Combined film with Outtakes reel are available here:
https://filmfreeway.com/projects/2377129

Outtake of after credits, impactful list of all, "Wars on Earth" - 90 seconds:
https://youtu.be/1Uz3m_Jm2uw