- The film premiered at Heartland Film Festival.
- The Healing Wall will play on WIPB (PBS) on November 20 at 10PM, November 22 (Thanksgiving) at 9.PM
- Kosinski is leaving the film open for view on Veteran’s day here.
A documentary shot, produced, directed and edited by all Ball State students will run on WIPB (PBS) Thanksgiving week.
"The Healing Wall," a documentary directed by Ball State graduate student Chris Kosinski, is about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Kosinski and a few classmates began the documentary in an immersive learning class. The documentary showcases how the unconventional aspects of the memorial lead to healing for veterans and family.
Kosinski met his executive producers and cinematographer in an immersive learning class, but they made the project on their own.
“['The Healing Wall'] was not for a grade, it was not for a class. We just did it while we were all in a class,” said Kosinski, who began researching the memorial and realized it had a “much deeper narrative that needed to be told.”
Kosinski recruited a few classmates and friends, all Ball State students, to help him with the documentary. Three of the crew members have been nominated for regional Emmy’s.
“Just being able to hear those stories personally from [the veterans] and getting to build a relationship with them was amazing,” said Kayla Sprayue, a Ball State graduate and one of the executive producers of the film.
Sprayue said most of the veterans weren’t comfortable talking about their stories at first.
“Watching them open up was beneficial for both of us," she said.
There was much controversy surrounding the building of the memorial. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was almost not built because of how unusual the memorial looked and who designed the memorial. The design of the memorial was left up to a competition, and a Yale Architecture student named Maya Lin won the competition, which was upsetting to many people, Kosinski said.
He said the traditional memorials were grandiose, patriotic and very “America," which is quite different from Lin’s design, which is a simple wall at a 130 degree angle, built into the earth, displaying the names of people who died in the Vietnam War.
Kosinksi said war memorials previous to Vietnam’s were large, grandiose and had a lot of statues. Instead Yin's design had the 140 slabs of black granite carved with the names of the casualties of the Vietnam War.
“The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is way different than [the World War II memorial]. It puts a real face on the cost of war,” Kosinski said. “People didn’t like that the memorial was built into the ground, and didn’t like that it memorialized the dead.”
The film tells the story of the wall becoming a healing place for veterans and family. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial began the “phenomenon” of leaving personal belongings, flowers and letters at memorials, said Sprayue, which is why this memorial is called The Healing Wall.
The documentary premiered at the Heartland Film Festival on Oct. 22 in Indianapolis.
Kosinski said making this documentary has changed his perspective, and made him more appreciative of veterans and military personnel.
“First, I want people to understand how the unconventional aspects of the landscape architecture made this such a special monument, I want the documentary to be educational. But more importantly, I want [the audience] to have the same experience I had. I want them to be appreciative of our freedom,” Kosinski said .
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