Feeling outrage and grief after witnessing news accounts about how veterans and their caretakers were treated during the pandemic, Cummington musician Laura Wetzler decided to act. Wetzler wrote, directed, produced, and scored an original indie film entitled “What Happened at the Veterans Home?”
The fictional drama depicts the story of a disabled veteran, her nurse daughter, and a CNA worker, all caught in the center of a pandemic nursing home tragedy. The call-to-action film is an official selection at 25 international film festivals and has won numerous awards.
Zydalis Bauer talked with Wetzler to learn more about the film.
Read the full transcript:
Zydalis Bauer, Connecting Point: Feeling outrage and grief after witnessing news accounts of some of the treatment of veterans and those who care for them during the pandemic, Cummington musician Laura Wetzler decided to write, direct, produce, and score her own homegrown indie film entitled “What Happened at the Veterans Home?”
The fictional drama depicts the story of a disabled veteran, her nurse daughter, and a CNA worker caught in the center of a pandemic nursing home tragedy. The call to action film is an official selection at 25 international film festivals and has won numerous awards.
I talked with Wetzler to learn more about the film.
Laura Wetzler, Filmmaker: Well, like everyone else, it just came out of being…being horrified. And I…I don’t…sit well with with being upset.
And as an artist, as a musician, as a writer…we — it’s part of how we cope with things, is to try and make something out of it that can possibly inspire people or, you know, at least reflect what’s going on.
Zydalis Bauer: The fictional drama tells the story about a veteran, her nurse daughter, and a CNA worker who are all in the middle of a pandemic health care tragedy.
How were you able to authentically portray these characters? What kind of research went into creating them?
Laura Wetzler: Well, I spoke to a lot of folks. I spoke to veterans, I spoke to health care workers.
And — and health care workers have been very vocal about what they’ve been through. They’ve put a lot of — they’ve been crying out to all of us, you know? So, it’s not as if, you know, it’s a surprise of many of them are suffering from PTSD. They felt some of them are being attacked. I mean, it’s just…it’s just been really, really difficult for them.
So, I spoke to a lot of people.
Zydalis Bauer: And I know that this is an all-female cast in — in the film.
What was it that made you want to depict the story from that perspective? Was there anything that went behind that? What went into the creation of the characters?
Laura Wetzler: Well, I just felt like people expect a story about a veteran to be a male veteran, you know? And the fact is, many, many women have served in the American military for the last 250 years. And many women of color have served in the military for — for the last 250 years, in various — as nurses, in various ways.
And I just thought that it was an opportunity to be able to really…change people’s stereotype about what a veteran looks like.
Zydalis Bauer: And throughout the film, there are many recognizable locations in the region.
Tell me more about where the film was shot and also, more importantly, how was it filming something amidst the pandemic itself?
Laura Wetzler: It was very challenging. I — I wrote the script between — in 2020. The month of June, I finished it July 4th.
We auditioned and started rehearsals by Zoom with actors in August. And we shot over only eight days in September. Two days each actor, five scenes over the course of two days, for each actress.
Finding locations was really challenging. We didn’t feel safe being too many of us indoors. We had to shoot from distances. We had to be creative about how we shot safely. We shot in Florence, around Northampton, in Greenfield, in Agawam, and in Holyoke.
And one day, we went to the — the park in — in Holyoke there, and, you know, along the canals, that beautiful park along the canal. And the day before, I went there and it looked like the Siene, the water was beautiful. It looked like it, you know?
And then we show up to to shoot, and the — the it had been — the canal had been drained! And so we were like, “Oh my God!”
There was all this construction going on. So, we just used it. We took shots of what we saw, we just immediately clicked into “How can we use this creatively to illustrate some of what was going on in the script?”
Zydalis Bauer: Well, when I was going to say I saw some of those creative shots with the canal drained, and I think it worked beautifully with the film. And I think the other thing, how you were able to be so creative without having the actors interact with each other, you know? Like you said, you were filming separately, but it’s still told the story.
Was this something that you’ve ever ventured into before or is this your first time creating a film?
Laura Wetzler: This is my first film, but I’m a singer-songwriter. I’m a professional musician. I normally tour about 100 dates a year. I’m a writer, so I’m — I’m accustomed to writing, but this — I wrote this first as a play. And so, the the idea is that these women are being interviewed by a journalist, like yourself, who is asking them questions about what happened, like a documentary.
But I had never written a play before. I had never done a film before. But we knew that we couldn’t put on a play in the middle of — of –of COVID. And I thought that making a film would be the only way to really capture it.
Zydalis Bauer: The film has already won numerous awards, including Best Screenplay in Paris, and Best Feature in Athens, and that’s just to name a few. It’s also an official selection at 25 international film festivals, so congratulations for that achievement.
What does this mean for you as an artist to have this film receive all of this great recognition?
Laura Wetzler: Well, we’re very proud of the whole team because we were a very small team. I mean, I laugh sometimes when I look at the credits of — of, you know, big Hollywood movies and there are hundreds and hundreds of people. It was four actresses, me, Jared Skolnik, who is the director of — of photography and worked on the edit with me and a sound guy. And it was just, you know, very, very, small, small team working on this.
So, I’m really, really proud.
Zydalis Bauer: As I mentioned before, we all heard about the different accounts happening around the world and especially it hit close to home locally with the tragedy at the local — at the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home. I have to say, though, myself, watching this film, it really hit differently, just hearing and seeing the characters.
What is it about art that is able to kind of elicit this different emotional response from others and even provoke change?
Laura Wetzler: Part of why I wrote it is because I was so upset with this — the statistics were so enormous. And it’s so hard to relate to numbers. I know these — I know folks who are living in facilities. And I was — I was horrified that it felt like the leaders thought…somehow, that these people were disposable, you know?
And — and they’re not. They — they are our mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters. They are us, you know? And so, I felt like I wanted to give those numbers some humanity so that we could relate to — to — to the tragedy in a different kind of way.
Zydalis Bauer: Well, and the film is heartbreaking, but yet hopeful at the same time. And you describe it as a call to action.
What would you love for viewers to take away after watching this film?
Laura Wetzler: My feeling is that we’re all responsible for taking care of each other and that we have to figure out as a society, how are we going to create supportive environments where we can take care of the most vulnerable family members, lovers, partners, parents? We have to, as a society, figure out how to do this.
You know, it’s not just pointing fingers at people. Institutions are really hard, but we’ve got to be more creative.
We’ve got to figure out — we cannot let the most vulnerable people in our society get tossed away when we’re in trouble. People are not disposable, period, you know?
Zydalis Bauer: And to that point, at this film — at the film’s premiere on Sunday, March 20th, a portion of each ticket sold will be donated to two organizations, Soldier On and the National Association of Black Military Women.
Why did you choose these two organizations in particular? And tell me about the importance of having this be an aspect of the film premiere?
Laura Wetzler: Well, I did a lot of research about who was doing what locally, and I loved the work that Soldier On was doing in terms of housing homeless vets and doing a tremendous amount of counseling services. So, I thought a local organization — wesoldieron.org is — people should check it out; they’re wonderful not-for-profit organization.
And then the National Association of Black Military Women is also an incredible organization, and they maintain a beautiful website with the history of Black women in the military. And I studied from that website. I learned a lot, and I used it as research to make the film.
And I felt I really owed payback to this wonderful organization that many people are not aware of. People don’t even know of this organization and people should! It’s a great organization.
