Retrograde / Film School Radio interview with Director Matthew Heineman

Matthew Heineman’s RETROGRADE captures the final nine months of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan from multiple perspectives: one of the last U.S. Special Forces units deployed there, a young Afghan general and his corps fighting to defend their homeland against all odds, and the civilians desperately attempting to flee as the country collapses and the Taliban take over. From rarely seen operational control rooms to the frontlines of battle to the chaotic Kabul airport during the final U.S. withdrawal, Oscar-nominated and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Matthew Heineman’s latest film offers a cinematic and historic window onto the end of America’s longest war, and the costs endured for those most intimately involved. Matthew Heineman (Cartel Land, City of Ghosts, The First Wave) joins us for a conversation on why he was determined to eschew the macro politics of the 20-year old war and boar in on the human cost, tribulations and vanishing compassion facing so many innocent people desperately looking for a way out of unfathomable chaos and the level of risk he and his crew the risk had to navigate. For more go to: nationalgeographic.com/retrograde For more on Matthew Heineman go to: Our Time Projects Opens in Los Angeles on November 18 at AMC Sunset 5 and Laemmle NoHo Also Streaming on: National Geographic, Thursday, December 8th - Disney+ Friday, December 9th - Hulu Sunday, December 11th