Press release

Montreal — Tuesday, August 20, 2007 - After its World Premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006, Heidi Specogna’s The Short Life of José Antonio Gutierrez has gone on to win the Best Documentary Prize at the Swiss Film Awards, the Fox Azteca Borders on Film Award at the San Diego Latino Film Festival, and most recently, the Best Feature Documentary Award at both the Toronto Hispano American Film Festival, and Xican Indie Film Fest Denver, 2007.

Since it's successful international festival tour, this unsettling and timely documentary about a young Guatemalan who became the first American soldier killed in the Iraq War has been released in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and Seattle, and will now be presented in Montreal between September 5th and 12th at the Institut-Goethe.

The film tells the moving and nearly unbelievable story of a one-time street kid from Guatemala, who headed north along the Pan-American Highway — full of hopes and desires for a better future — ultimately to die an American hero far from home in a deadly quest for US citizenship. A so-called “green-card soldier” José Antonio Gutierrez was one of approximately 32,000, fighting in the ranks of the US Armed Forces. A few hours after the war began, his picture was broadcast all over the world: he was the first American soldier to be killed in the war. Chilling, thought-provoking, and profound, José Antonio’s story is no adventurer's tale. It is the story of a young man's attempt to survive -on both sides of the world.

The Short Life of José Antionio Gutiérrez

A film by Heidi Specogna
Germany • 2006 • 35mm
Running time: 89 minutes
In Spanish, English & German with English subtitles

Screeners and high-resolution photos available. The filmmaker is also available for phone/e-mail interviews. Contact info@atopia.com or 514-985-0873 for more information, or visit the films’ website at www.theshortlife-film.com for related links and show-times.

Atopia Distribution releases its in-house productions as well as a selection of equally insightful films to audiences across the US and Canada. Daring and original, our films are critically-acclaimed features, which, in order to give the richest tour, are screened at major festivals around the world, then released in art-house and commercial theatres to garner wide media exposure prior to launching them on DVD and the internet via download innovator, Jaman.Com, a leader in Indie world cinema on the web.

News posted Tuesday, August 21, 2007.