Broken Victory

Paul Freedman's latest film profiles American servicemen and women who are struggling to readjust to life away from combat. Intimately told by veterans, their families, and those charged with their care, Halfway Home tragically affirms that the toll of war extends far beyond the battlefield. Exploring both the stigma of war-induced "mental health issues" and the negative attitudes towards their treatment, this moving documentary lends a human face to this controversial matter.

In decades past, Native American artists who wanted to sell to mainstream collectors had little choice but to create predictable, Hollywood-style western scenes. Then came a generation of painters and sculptors led by Allan Houser (or Haozous), a Chiricahua Apache artist with no interest in stereotyped imagery and a belief that his own rich heritage was compatible with modernist ideas and techniques. Narrated by actor Val Kilmer and originally commissioned as part of an exhibit of Houser’s work at the Oklahoma History Center, this program depicts the artist’s tribal ancestry, his rise to regional and national acclaim, and the continuing success of his sons as they expand upon and depart from their father’s achievements. Key works are documented, as is Houser’s tenure at the Santa Fe–based Institute of American Indian Arts.