Does the act of killing change the person who pulls the trigger? Hidden Battles follows a female Sandinista rebel, an Israeli officer, a Palestinian freedom fighter and two American soldiers as they come to terms with their combat experiences. The film offers unique insight into the internal conflicts that human beings around the world continue to face long after they have left the battlefield.

Victoria Mills

Victoria Mills is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, as well as a full-time practicing psychoanalyst. Her first film, Mothers and Daughters: Mirrors that Bind, traveled the festival circuit in 2002. In conjunction with the film, she lead workshops with universities, national women’s organizations, and grass-roots community groups. As an analyst with 25 years experience, Victoria has worked extensively with people of different cultures who have experienced trauma, including those who suffered from the 9/11 attacks. She is also is a training analyst and on the faculty of the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis and a member of the International Psychoanalytic Association and the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research.

To purchase the DVD click here.

• Film's Website
  http://www.hiddenbattles.com
• Film's Facebook page
  http://www.facebook.com/hiddenbattles
• Film's Twitter Feed
  http://twitter.com/hiddenbattles

Director’s Statement

The film Hidden Battles was born out of my desire to understand what it is like to kill a person in war. As a psychoanalyst, I knew about trauma, but I understood little about this topic. At the time - in 2004 - it seemed important to find out more: our country was at war and we would have soldiers returning from combat who had killed, and who would be faced with integrating this reality into their lives.

Not wanting to make generalizations about how soldiers react to killing, I set out to interview former military men and women from around the world about this delicate topic. I was very curious about how soldiers processed their experiences and what they told themselves about what they had done. I interviewed military experts, war historians and psychologists, but I thought the real experts were the soldiers themselves. I had so many questions, and wondered if there were similarities across different countries and conflicts. I traveled throughout the US and to several countries and met many soldiers, interviewing more than 40 people.

I purposely chose individuals who were functioning in their day-to-day to show that it is possible to build a life after war. And I wanted to understand how they did it. My work as an analyst both informed and conflicted with my work as a filmmaker. Most of these soldiers had never talked about how killing in war had affected them in any other than a superficial way. Because I am in the profession of helping people, I believe the soldiers found it easier to share things they rarely talk about. The trust they afforded me was tremendous. However, as an analyst, I am committed to maintaining a person's privacy and even though they wanted their stories told, as did I, I often felt conflicted. I interviewed and filmed each soldier over an extended period of time, to see how their stories would unfold. As time went on, many of their recollections became more detailed and nuanced. Every soldier deals with killing in his or her own unique way, and Hidden Battles shows five ways in which this act is integrated into five different lives. All testify to the resilience of the human spirit and the hopefulness of their future.

Join the conversation: