Shortlisted for 2022 Oscar’s for Best Documentary Feature
RETROGRADE captures the final nine months of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan from multiple perspectives: one of the last U.S. Special Forces units deployed there, a young Afghan general and his corps fighting to defend their homeland against all odds, and the civilians desperately attempting to flee as the country collapses and the Taliban take over. From rarely seen operational control rooms to the frontlines of battle to the chaotic Kabul airport during the final U.S. withdrawal, Oscar-nominated and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Matthew Heineman’s latest film offers a cinematic and historic window onto the end of America’s longest war, and the costs endured for those most intimately involved. Rated R for some language.
Documentarian MATTHEW HEINEMAN
Heineman grew up on Martha’s Vineyard, and is an Academy Award®-nominated and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker. The Sundance Film Festival called Heineman “one of the most talented and exciting documentary filmmakers working today”, while Anne Thompson of Indiewire wrote that Heineman is a “respected and gifted filmmaker who combines gonzo fearlessness with empathetic sensitivity.” Heineman directed Amazon’s THE BOY FROM MEDELLÍN, an astonishingly intimate portrait of one of the biggest international music superstars of our time, J Balvin. Heineman co-directed with Matthew Hamachek the two-part documentary TIGER. The documentary, which was released by HBO in two parts in January 2021, offers a revealing look at the rise, fall, and epic comeback of global icon Tiger Woods. His documentary film CITY OF GHOSTS, which follows a group of citizen-journalists exposing the horrors of ISIS, premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and was distributed worldwide by Amazon Studios before having its broadcast premiere on A&E.
“A study of a betrayal and its heartbreaking fallout.”
-The Daily Beast
“Retrograde is an intense, immersive experience that reminds us how ineffective and destructive war can be.”
-San Jose Mercury News
