Sundance's blog

One Platoon, One Year, One Valley

RESTREPO (US Documentary Competition) having its World Premiere is directed by Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger. This film will show what it is actually like to be in a country at war and trying to rebuild.

National Geographic Channel has acquired exclusive global broadcast rights to a RESTREPO prior to its screening at Sundance. The movie will premiere in the fall on National Geographic Channel worldwide. 

RESTREPO is set deep in eastern Afghanistan among the rugged Korengal Valley. This is epicenter of the current conflict and one of the most dangerous postings in the U.S. military. To make their thrilling documentary award-winning journalists Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger (“The Perfect Storm”) embedded themselves with the soldiers of Second Platoon, Battle Company, as they fought to build and maintain a remote 15-man outpost in the Korengal. The outpost was named “Restrepo” after a platoon medic who was killed in action. Hetherington and Junger avoid all outside commentary and political context in order to present the war as it is actually lived by soldiers. We see it through their own eyes and in their own words, the backbreaking labor, the deadly firefights, the boredom, the camaraderie. RESTREPO is documentary filmmaking at its most bracingly visceral. (94 mins.)