The List

Why did I write and direct The List? There is a short answer and a longer answer.
The short answer - I wrote and directed The List because I wanted to see if I could tell a compelling story in Paraguay with a Paraguayan cast and crew using the available resources and a budget I could fund myself. And I think my cast, crew and I succeeded in that goal, beyond all expectations.

The longer answer – My first career was in conflict resolution. As an Army officer specializing in force protection, my profession within the military was understanding conflict and finding ways to end it. Deployed to Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, I was fortunate to be in positions in each conflict where I had a front row seat on the search for peace. To try to learn why people would disagree with each other so vehemently that they would take up arms and kill their neighbor, each believing themselves to be in the right.

Usually the answer was oppression and brain-washing A dictator or supreme leader who favored his people and dominated the others, who jailed their opponents, at best, tortured and slaughtered them at worst. And enlisted his supporters to believe their way was the one true way. I saw that over and over again.

That led to the next question, which in turn led to The List. Once the dictator is gone, what happens to all its henchmen? As importantly, what happens to all those who filled out his bureaucracy. The inspectors, the customs officials, the rich friends, the bankers and the accountants. Especially the bankers and accountants, who knew they were handling blood money, day in day out. Except the bills they actually touched were pristine, symbols of the power of the regime.

In the time I was in Iraq and Afghanistan, most of the former regime members, lived on, in plain sight. The formerly oppressed never got justice, never got their lives or dignity back. The “winners” continued to live in fear, waiting for the return of Saddam, or the Taliban.

But in Kosovo, I witnessed a reckoning. Albanians, enraged by decades of murder and terror turned the tables on the Serbs. Those Serbs who stole from them, looted their homes, tortured their sons, they were hunted mercilessly. And those Serbs who were caught, met the people’s justice. And the land returned more or less to peace. I’m not saying it was right, just that it happened. Blood oaths avenged, a new Kosovo rose from the ashes, proud and ready.

In all cases above, I wondered, where is the line? The one between evil henchman and the proverbial cog in the system. What makes you complicit? It was clear that the torturers and the regime’s thugs were on the bad list. The corrupt judges? Yes. The clerk at the driver’s license bureau? Probably not.

When I came to live in Paraguay, I was fascinated by the Latin American experience with dictatorships and the aftermath. Pinochet and Castro and all the others. What happened to those who were loyalists to the old regime? Did they flee or fade away into the gray with their ill-gotten gains? Were they put on trial and jailed? Were they “re-educated” and returned to society? And importantly, did the people feel that justice had been done?

That was my starting point when I approached The List. Where’s the line between a true regime believer and a person just doing their job? When a regime falls, who’s “guilty”? What is “guilt”?

That’s the question I want audiences to think about as they experience The List. Where’s the line between guilt and innocence for them? Is a sadistic guard at a brutal prison guilty? What about the person who makes their uniform? Or cooks their meals. Where’s the line?

For The List, I created a reckoning in a fictional South American nation that just saw its dictatorship fall and democracy rise. I thought a unique way to assign “guilt” of the former regime members was through democratic means – an election. Let the people speak. Let the majority rule. And find their own way to justice.

I inserted an exiled family returning home for the first time in decades directly into the middle of this reckoning. A family, as it turns out, had some involvement with the old regime. For me Juan, the main character, and his family are the perfect vessel to examine right versus wrong, innocence versus guilt. We are all guilty of something. But how guilty?

Some have said The List has echoes of The Purge movie franchise. I’m okay with that, as The List is about purging away years of terror and oppression. But The List is also a deeper story, the “why” there is a need for a purge. It’s not about petty interpersonal slights. It’s about vengeance aimed toward a regime that ended the lives of many and stole the futures of those who remained.

Sometimes people just need to feel that justice has been done. As said in The List, “May you get the justice you deserve.”