Part 3: Interview with 'Brothers at War' Director, Jake Rademacher

Note: Part 1 of this 4 part interview can be found here and Part 2, here.

J.R. Head: Changing gears, (Executive Producer) Gary Sinise said of this film, “Brothers at War celebrates the courage and integrity of the American Soldier and the American military family. It is also a film about a man’s love and respect for his two brothers and his dedication to telling their story. A great film that I am proud to be a part of.” That’s got to feel good, coming from someone of Gary’s caliber.

“Brothers at War” Director, Jake Rademacher: Yeah, it was funny. I was invited to screen “Brothers at War” in Iraq for General Petraeus’ public affairs folks and a number of our warriors stationed over there. Upon viewing the film, Marine Lieutenant Colonel Loretta Vandenberg, extremely moved by “Brothers at War” said, “You need to get this to Gary Sinise. He’s a big supporter of the troops, you need to get him to present this film. Call him when you get back to Los Angeles.” I was like, “okay… do you have his phone number?”

I mean, it’s not like Gary and I were having drinks at the same cantina. I had always admired his acting, both on stage and on screen, but I didn’t really see any way to get in contact with him. So, I just put that suggestion in the back of my head and came back to L.A. While cutting the film… every time we’d make some changes my producing partner, Norman Powell, my editor, Bob DeMaio, and I’d bring in a couple friends, to get feedback on the cut. An actor friend of mine, former Marine, Michael Broderick, had seen the film over the summer and when I came back to William Morris Agency, where we’re both rep’ed for voice-over, I saw him and he was excited to know how the screenings in Iraq went.

JRH: Another Marine? I like where this is going…

JR: After telling him they went well, as an aside I off-handedly told him what LtCol Vandenberg had said about Gary Sinise. Michael says, “I know Gary.” I said, “You know Gary?” He says, “Yeah, yeah. I’m having lunch with him later this week.” I was like, “What?!” (laughs) Cut to a week later, Michael tells me Gary wants to see “Brothers at War” and gives me the number to Eric, Gary’s assistant. So, we went about finding a time in Gary’s schedule to see the film, and eventually set up a screening for the day before Thanksgiving.

JRH: He obviously liked the film. How did he become executive producer?

JR: He laughed a lot in the beginning of the film, was moved during the middle, and I could see his excitement during the third act. After the credits rolled, he just sat there for a couple of minutes, just taking it in. Then we talked for about an hour, about the war, “Brothers at War,” his tours to visit the troops, it was the start of a deep friendship. He put his shoulder behind helping us get distribution and raise awareness for the film. He just started acting like an executive producer from that day on, so, eventually we made it official.

JRH: I saw the film at the screening over at FOX studios–

JR: That was our first event. Jon Voight had seen “Brothers at War” the week before Gary and had fallen in love with it. Gary Sinise, Jon Voight and Norman Powell and my production company, Metanoia Films, hosted a private screening on the Fox Lot to introduce “Brothers at War” to the entertainment community. The film got a standing ovation by the 350 people there. We had a great Q&A afterward. They were pulling tables out of the reception room after and there was still a line of people that wanted to speak with me about the film. It was a great event. John Ondrasik of Five for Fighting went home that night, sat down at his piano and wrote a song. He was inspired by the characters in the film, and then recorded his performance with the emotions stirred by the film still swirling inside him. You can hear John’s voice as it was recorded that night during our end credits.

Gary Sinise, Jake Rademacher, Army Capt. Isaac Rademacher

JRH: Wow.

JR: He was really feeling it, Lee Holdridge composed the string section that supports John’s piano and vocals. I think Brothers in Arms is a beautiful way to end the film.

JRH: The FOX screening… Is that how you hooked up with Samuel Goldwyn?

JR: No, but I got an excellent entertainment attorney through that process, Craig Emanuel, who is just a font of information, knowledge, and advice. It became apparent to all of us: Craig, Norman, Gary, and Dave Scantling (who was starting to come into the picture at this point) that we had to prove that “Brothers at War” had an audience. We had to take the film out into the country. First “Brothers at War” world premiered at the G.I. Film Festival. General Casey, the Chief of Staff of the Army and MNFI Commander of Iraq while we were shooting in Iraq, was there. Robert Duvall was there, and Gary Sinise introduced the film.

“Brothers at War” received a standing ovation, and won “Best Feature Length Documentary.” It received another standing ovation at West Point a week later. Then Gary flew to Decatur, Illinois for a charity event, where we sold 700 tickets in six hours in order to raise $25,000 for veterans’ causes. The next week at the Solstice Film Festival in Minnesota, we took “Best Documentary” and the Grand Jury Award. The next week in Dallas we raised another $20,000 for veterans causes–

JRH: Now, the G.I. Film Festival is obviously a “friendly audience” to a military film but the Solstice Film Festival isn’t a military film festival, is it?

JR: No, it’s not. I was really happy about the G.I. Film Festival because those are the guys, the warriors… I wanted to know what they thought about the film and was honored to have it received so well. To me, that was the most important thing. Solstice was really great because, as you note, it wasn’t a military festival. It was in Minneapolis, which is very mixed, politically. Very interesting screening, I’ll never forget it. To win the “Grand Jury Prize” of the whole festival was really a great honor.

It was interesting because there were only three veterans in the entire audience. So, it was a great chance to see people who maybe don’t know a lot of people in the military, don’t have any military in their family, in their lives, but they just want to know more about what’s going on. They’re curious about the whole thing. We had a great Q&A afterwards. One woman raised her hand and said (about the snipers) that it bothered her a little bit how they talked about death and doing what they had to do. We had a fantastic conversation.

I explained that I could’ve cut all that out, y’know, not have the truth in there, but that’s not what “Brothers at War” is about. That’s how they deal with it and they’re doing a really tough job. I told her that often a soldier’s opinion of Iraqis is tied directly to the soldier’s job. I mean, if your job is to find the worst people doing the worst things and then take them out, you’re not going to have a very high opinion of them. If, on the other hand, your job is to train and work with them every single day and mold them, like SSgt Allier, you generally have a much better opinion of them. They’re your friends. You see the good in them. You see guys that are trying to rebuild their country, trying to grasp this opportunity that’s in front of them. I think it’s inspiring to see someone taking steps toward that. Allier says very clearly in the film that his opinion of the Iraqis started to change when he started to treat them like he would his Marines. When they stepped up to go through the same dangers with him.

JRH: So, the Solstice audience responded to the film as well as the festival judges?

JR: Oh, yeah. This guy came up to me afterwards and put his hand on my shoulder and said he’d been in the National Guard for sixteen years. He worked as a prison guard in civilian life but he was also a Captain in the National Guard. He’d done two tours in Iraq. He said, “I just want to tell you what your film means to me…” and then he just looked down and he started to cry. I’ll never forget it. He said, “I’ve never cried in front of my kids. I’ve never cried in front of my wife but you know what we go through.” And he said, “I lost a lot of good buddies over there.” In Decatur, a gold star mom came up to me, told me she lost her son in Iraq and thanked me for making “Brothers at War.”

They are the ones that have driven this entire effort forward to try and make sure the American people get to see this film. It’s one thing to get a million hits on the website or a standing ovation but when someone is moved by the film or a soldier comes up to me and says he can’t wait for his girlfriend or his dad to see it, that’s what’s important for me. It keeps us all going. So, we were able to generate some momentum by taking it out to these different events and the response was very positive. My attorney talked to Endeavor and Graham Taylor, head of Endeavor Independent Film, responded to all that and said, “Listen, I’ll take you to a couple of distributors that I think would be right for this.” He called up Samuel Goldwyn. Samuel Goldwyn Films saw the film and said they were very interested. We sat down with them, and were really impressed.

They’ve been around for a hundred years, and Peter Goldwyn grandson of Samuel was the one we met with. He understood that I wanted to bring the film to the soldiers and their families first, for emotional reasons but also because there are 3 million people serving in the military right now between reserves and National Guard, and active duty. There are 23 million veterans and they’ve been kind of overlooked as a group. So, I thought I’d do a little something different… focus on them and bring the “Brothers at War”to them first, and Samuel Goldwyn Films was open to that.

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In the final part of my interview with Jake, we talk about brothers, family and why it’s important that Americans get out and see “Brothers at War.” Stay tuned.

Semper fidelis,

J.R. Head

“Brothers at War” is currently playing in Los Angeles at Santa Monica’s AMC Broadway 4. It is also currently playing in Springfield, IL, White Plains, NY and Knoxville, TN.