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We’re happy to announce that Don Thompson’s feature-length WWII action-drama ‘Kaltenhouse’ has won ‘Best Feature Screenplay’ at the 2020 New York Film Awards.
The script also won two top awards at the Festigious International Film Festival, where it won both the ‘Best Action Screenplay’ and ‘Screenplay of the Month’.
The script also won the Best Drama Screenplay at the Los Angeles Film Awards in 2019.
To say the least, we’re very happy the script is receiving recognition at these competitive and highly regarded festivals and events.
‘Kaltenhouse’ is based on the WWII memoirs of Norman A. Thompson (Don’s father) titled Kaltenhouse Remembered. The book can be found on Amazon here.
nextPix is shopping the project to Los Angeles based production companies and has also been working with European producers to find the best locations for production. If green-lit on schedule, the film should go into production in 2021 and be released in 2022.
Conversation #2 between Emmy award-winning journalist Ursula Pfeiffer and Don Thompson of nextPix — some great discussion and dialog, seeking a path forward for society.
“They were like butterflies, it was like they never slept,” said Mr. Vounta, recalling the bombs that the U.S. dropped on Laos from 1964 to 1973. Mr. Vounta is one of the voices featured in This Little Land of Mines, a film by Erin McGoff, a 2017 Student Fellow from American University. The film premiered at the Landmark Bethesda Row Theater on Thursday, July 18, 2019, to an audience of nearly 200 that filled the theater.
Read more here.
Erin McGoff at the Q@A for ‘This Little Land of Mines’ World Premiere on July 18th, 2019.
I have trouble with the idea of life being a black and white movie. Good and Evil. Us vs. Them. Heroes and villains.
In nature, a jaguar attacks a gazelle. While not so good from the point of view of the gazelle, the jaguar thinks it’s OK.
From the point of view the British Government, the Syrian massacre is a litmus test of evil. Thus they summoned the top Syrian 
diplomat in London to tell him so. But is it?
No matter what we think, from the point of view of the terrorist, such actions are justified. Does that make it justified? No. Does it make it right? No. Does it make the Syrian government absolute evil? No.
How can I say this?
It seems to me that American, NATO and coalition forces have killed many, many children and women over the past few years during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and also using killer drones in Pakistan and Yemen. Is the British or U.S. government weeping over these deaths? Are they justified? Depends on who you ask. Are they right? Depends on who you talk to.
Who is the role model for the Syrian forces that kill women and children? Is it Al Qaeda? Is it Americans? Is it both?
You might say, ‘they struck first.’ But did they? To the Palestinian, the root cause for much of the Middle East’s woes is the insistence on a Jewish State, and that was the ‘first blow.’ Prior to the Jewish State, Palestinians and Jews had no problem co-existing for hundreds of years. The point is not to bash Israel. The point is that the question ‘who struck first’ is ultimately futile.
At Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two nuclear devices killed tens of thousands, among of which were women and children. Do we weep for those women and children? Were the acts justified? It seems some very well-respected Presidents ordered those killings.
My point is this. Evil is more often than not a point of view, as is good. My experience tells me that huffing and puffing about good and evil gets people ready for war. It is generally, usually, a manipulation. It is a manipulation to get people emotionally wound up so that we can go to battle convinced of our righteousness.
That’s what is happening now.
Let’s get this straight. To a large extent the greatest butchers of all time have been the ‘civilized’ west. We don’t blink an eye when decimating the American Indians, Iraqi civilians, Pakistanis, Vietnamese and others.
We will probably not blink an eye in killing a few thousand Syrians, should it come to that.
Does it need to come to that?
Isn’t there a better way? I for one believe there is. We must envision a new world where killing of innocent women and children no longer occurs, so that we no longer feel the need to retaliate. We must create a better world where dialog, mutual respect and collaboration are embedded into international dealings and institutionalized as the only and best approach.
If we do not do this, war will always be the destiny of humankind.
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D.R. Thompson’s is a producer, playwright and essayist. His latest book of essays is A World Without War.
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