A FORGOTTEN LEGACY
‘Eternal Harvest’ tells the story of unexploded bombs remaining in Laos half a century after the US dropped them
When Karen Coates and Jerry Redfern start a project, they’re in it for the long haul.
The two New Mexico residents have taken home accolades for their documentary, “Eternal Harvest,” at the Tallgrass Film Festival, where it was awarded outstanding documentary. The filmmakers are planning to submit it to New Mexico film festivals.
The film took more than seven years and two trips to Laos to complete.
“It’s been a lot of work,” Redfern says. “The basic process of film festivals is so different. We have to get the film format ready with captions or no captions. We live in a spot with bad internet and there’s always something happening.”
“Eternal Harvest” uncovers the deadly legacy of unexploded bombs remaining in Laos half a century after the United States dropped them.
It is history’s largest bombing campaign and many Americans today know nothing about it.
The film is produced by New Mexico-based Redcoates Studios.
Coates says the film raises key questions about how U.S. post-war foreign policy should be shaped.
Between 1964 and 1973, in an offshoot of the Vietnam War, U.S. forces dumped more than 4 billion pounds of bombs on the tiny country of Laos.
When the last U.S. planes departed, more than 80 million unexploded bombs remained in the ground.
They’re still there — a danger to millions of civilians in a country where 75% of the population works in farming.
Old U.S. ordnance has killed and injured more than 20,000 Laotians since the bombings ended decades ago, and accidents still happen every week.
“The film underscores the critical need for more clearance funding,” Coates says. “While the U.S. spent more than $50 billion bombing Laos, it has spent only $300 million to clean it up.”
Coates and Redfern decided to open the film with archival war footage and stories of survivors, including a young girl named Zua Pa, who watched her sister die in a bomb accident in 2017.
Audiences learn of the incredible efforts of clearance teams that scour the land, inch by inch, searching for bombs. Only one American, a retired school principal from Wisconsin named Jim Harris, returns to Laos year after year to remove and destroy ordnance. The film follows his team through remote regions of Laos near the Vietnam border.
In 2016, when President Obama visited Laos, he announced a historic increase in funding for the country — $90 million over three years.
“Yet, that is only a tiny fraction of what is needed to make the land safe,” he says.
Coates wants to keep a focus on the subject because it’s one that’s not talked about.
“Every time we tell Americans about this story, they are flabbergasted,” she says. “There has to be change and we hope the film will help bring attention to the problem and help find some answers.”
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