unique georgia story told in "My Christmas Soldier"
This past holiday movie season, while Tim Allen returned to the screen as Santa Claus, the Nativity story was retold, neighbors warred in the name of holiday spirit and Home Alone was remade in an airport, a Georgia made short film marched quietly onto the field and took its place among the ranks of holiday movies, with the promise of outlasting the aforementioned big releases.
My Christmas Soldier is based on a bit of little known Georgia history: The detention of German soldiers in POW camps around Georgia during World War II. While waiting for their father's train on Christmas Eve 1943, Gordy and his sister Cilia hear adult whisperings about German prisoners in box cars just outside the depot, en route to prison camps. Fear and paranoia dress every word, reinforced by propaganda posters that literally stare down at the children with ominous eyes. But curiosity gets the better of Gordy and Cilia. Finding the prisoners' car, they make contact with POW Hans. Despite the fears implanted on them, the kids make a gesture that breaks down the walls of misunderstanding, and changes the hearts and minds of the adults, American and German alike.
Owen Smith directed and shot a script by screenwriter and historian Mauriel Joslyn. The pair met after Joslyn saw Smith's World War II short Battaglia, a top five finalist in the Amazon Theater/Tribeca Film Festival Short Film Competition. Both wanted to do a Christmas piece, and Joslyn's knowledge of Georgia history provided inspiration for the story.
According to Joslyn, 11,000 German POWs were held in 40 prison camps across Georgia between 1942 and 1947. More than once did Georgians encounter the prisoners in some situation that had a positive and lasting effect on both nationalities. One such encounter occurred in a Georgia train station, and it is this incident that Joslyn based the screenplay.
"I took the incident and fictionalized it," Joslyn said in interview included on the film's DVD release, "I loved the Christmas-coming-together aspect of [the incident]: When you think someone is an enemy, when you think someone is dangerous and there's a prejudice involved, sometimes, when you really get on common ground, your attitude changes." The common ground was nothing more than a Christmas carol.
My Christmas Soldier was shot on location at a restored train depot in Gordon, Georgia, and on period trains and railroad cars at the Southeastern Railway Museum in Duluth during the summer of 2006. A cast and 40 extras and WWII re-enactors endured the summer heat in period winter costumes, and a skeleton crew pulled off the work of at least twenty people. Smith's attention to detail gives the film more than an authentic feel for the era, from the costumes to replica props and posters to the German prisoners speaking in their native language. One might even feel the cold of the winter night while watching a train "move" into the station.
In addition to producing, directing and photographing, Smith also edited and scored My Christmas Soldier. It is not the first time that Smith has worn many hats for a film. He has filled key production and post-production on nearly every film he has made to date, including the children's video series The Sugar Creek Gang, of which he is producer.
Joslyn's script does not dwell on the "true meaning of Christmas" or seasonal sentiment that is the basis (and sometimes downfall) of many holiday movies. Instead, she tells how the innocence of a child's perspective can see past the fears of adults to the humanity of people. Once the good is seen, fear and hatred can be transformed into understanding and goodwill: An ideal for all seasons.
Joslyn won the 2006 PAGE International Screenwriting Awards Silver Prize for My Christmas Soldier's screenplay. Her other awards include 2004 20/20 Screenwriting Contest, and placement in Fade In Magazine, the Nicholl Fellowship, and Open Door Scr(i)pt screenwriting contests.
My Christmas Soldier premiered in November 2006 in Atlanta to two sold out showings. To date, it has made two festival appearances, winning Second Place, Best Short Film at the 2007 Southern Fried Flicks Festival, and receiving many positive reviews. The DVD was released in December 2006. Its special features include a much too short making of featurette, and two documentaries about German POWs in the south, one being an extended interview with a former POW now living in Georgia.
While My Christmas Soldier does not exhibit the big budget slickness of the past year's holiday offerings (on the other hand, the film does not have the usual look of a low budget film), it has many of the elements that have made certain movies synonymous with the holiday season. I do not like to throw out the term "instant classic," but My Christmas Soldier is at least on its way to classic status.
My Christmas Soldier is available on DVD through Amazon.com and many Christian online retailers, or through http://www.mychristmassoldier.com
Stephen Hart is a Clayton County Georgia librarian by day, and a screenwriter and filmmaker night and weekends. He is a staff writer for CinemATL.