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Movies on the Big Screen:
What I Want You To Know w/ filmmaker Q&A

SUN, November 23, 4pm

2023 | Documentary | Directed by Catie Foertsch | 1h 32m | NR

Featuring post screening Q&A with director/ producer Catie Foertsch & Executive Producer Travis Weiner

About the Film 

After the 9/11 attacks on September 11, 2001, the United States rallied a great coalition of allies and sent military forces into Afghanistan. Two years later, President George W. Bush told the nation that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and had to be preemptively stopped. In March 2003, the US invaded Iraq.

While many documentary films have been made about the post-911 wars, most provide a narrow focus on a single person or platoon, a single battle or incident. What I Want You To Know is a broad accounting of the wars and an exploration of their costs and consequences, as told through interviews with veterans who served in combat roles in the Army and the Marines, in different ranks and specialties, who deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, or both. Through deeply personal stories told with courage and candor – stories that are usually only talked about in private with other veterans – they share their experiences during and after their deployments and paint a picture of the moral complexities and impacts of their wars, and of war itself.

What I Want You To Know lays bare the extent of what war does to those who do the actual fighting, particularly with regard to moral injury, the profound psychological and emotional wound that many veterans carry from their wartime experiences.

“Thank you so much for helping to paint a picture for people who have never been to combat. I have spent time in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and this is very similar to my experiences.”
Iraq & Afghanistan veteran

“This was exactly what I experienced in Vietnam and upon my return home.”
Vietnam veteran

About the Filmmakers

After their deployments ended and they returned home, Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans Travis Weiner and Tommy Furlong were discouraged by how little the American public seemed to know or care about the wars and their cost to the men and women who were fighting them. After leaving the military, they worked together in veteran outreach at a Boston-area nonprofit, and many veterans they interacted with told them the same thing, that no one was interested in what they had to say about the wars, including, sometimes, the clinicians who were treating them.

At the time, most Americans and many clinicians had never heard of moral injury, the profound psychological and emotional wound that veterans – combat veterans especially – often carry from their wartime experiences. Moral injury can manifest in social isolation, substance abuse, cynicism and anger, despair, and suicide, all issues many veterans struggle with. While the clinical community has recently begun to study moral injury and to look for effective treatments, many clinicians who treat veterans are still unfamiliar with what it is and how it affects veterans.

Travis and Tommy decided in 2018 to make a documentary film that would allow combat veterans to share candid stories from their deployments and talk about their feelings and beliefs about the wars they fought. Their purpose was to validate veterans’ experiences and feelings, to give clinicians the information they need to understand moral injury, and to share with the American public the true cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At the time, Catie Foertsch was senior producer at DigiNovations in greater Boston, producing a wide variety of film and video projects for corporate, nonprofit and academic clients in New England, nationally and internationally. She agreed to produce and direct the film because she believes America can and should do more to support veterans and their families. This is more likely to happen if we listen to what veterans want us to know about their wars, and the cost to themselves and their families.

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