Das kurze Leben des José Antonio Gutierrez
Heidi Specogna, Germany, Switzerland, 2006o
José Antonio Gutierrez was one of 300'000 US soldiers in the 2003 Iraq war and the first American casualty. He came from Guatemala and fought as one of 32'000 so-called Green Card Soldiers who were offered the prospect of a permanent right of residence and a scholarship in the USA. - Heidi Specogna's documentary follows the life of the young deceased, from orphan and street child in Guatemala City to the life-threatening odyssey to the USA, where Gutierrez wanted to finance his studies of architecture by signing up with the Marines. It is precisely the matter-of-fact style of the research, which won the Swiss Documentary Film Prize in 2007, that makes the exemplary and shocking aspect of this case all the more striking.