(Glendale, CA) A local filmmaker, Rose Wuyts-Wilson, has started a journey that she hopes will end on-stage at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood on February 26, 2012.
Wuyts-Wilson, 50, recently submitted her self-funded short documentary, “The Ghost of War,” for Oscar consideration. “Regardless of how it all turns out, this is an exciting moment and a milestone I am celebrating, “ she said from her Glendale home.
The 40-minute documentary tells the story of the World War II service of the RMS Queen Mary and the military service men who sailed aboard her.
There have been many milestones for the production, not the least of which is its endurance: This labor of love has been seven years in the making. After considering the project even longer than that, Wuyts-Wilson started to make the dream a reality in 2004.
It began as a way for Wuyts-Wilson to find out more about her father, Harry Wuyts, a staff sergeant in the U. S. Army Air Corps during World War II. He died very young, before Wuyts-Wilson got a chance to know much about his wartime service.
She interviewed soldiers who, like her father, traveled to or from the war aboard the Queen Mary.
The ship was known during that time as “The Grey Ghost,” both for its ghostly gray camouflage paint and for it speed, which allowed it to disappear on the high seas, despite being tracked relentlessly by Hitler’s U-boats. In making the documentary, Wuyts-Wilson didn’t travel quite as far as the famous liner. But she did rack up thousands of miles, seeking out and interviewing veterans from Long Beach (near where the Queen Mary lies at anchor today) to upstate New York, New Hampshire and Virginia. Each man gives his take on what it meant to go to war, to wonder if they would return, to serve a cause greater than themselves.
Wuyts-Wilson notes that the story repeats itself today, with soldiers once again heading off to war, though few travel on a converted luxury liner.
The film is narrated by Nigel Havers, the well-known British actor who starred in the Oscar-winning motion picture “Chariots of Fire.”
“The Ghost of War” begins its theatrical run next week at the Laemmle’s Fallbrook 7 Theater in West Hills. The film will show at 4:30 p.m. each day, from October 7-13th.
For more information on the film, visit www.ghostofwarfilm.com. For theater address and information, see: http://www.laemmle.com/viewmovie.php?mid=7470
