By Robert Goldrich, The Road To Oscar Series, Part 11

Last week, Matthew Heineman garnered his fourth career DGA Award nomination, this time for Retrograde (National Geographic Documentary Films, Picturehouse). Three of the nods, including for Retrograde, have come in the Documentary category. The other nomination came four years ago for his narrative feature debut, A Private War, which contended for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in First-Time Feature Film. 

The nomination for A Private War gave Heineman a unique distinction. He and Martin Scorsese are the only filmmakers ever nominated for both narrative and documentary DGA Awards.

Heineman is a two-time DGA Award winner–for the documentaries Cartel Land in 2016 and City of Ghosts in 2018.

Cartel Land also won two primetime Emmys (for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking, and Outstanding Cinematography for a Nonfiction Program) while also earning a Best Feature Documentary Oscar nomination.

Now Heineman is again in the Academy Awards conversation as Retrograde last month made the cut as one of 15 films on the Oscar Documentary Feature shortlist.

Retrograde captures the final nine months of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan from varied perspectives–those of a U.S. Special Forces unit deployed there, an Afghan general and his corps fighting to defend their homeland against staggering odds, and the civilians desperately trying to flee as the country collapses and the Taliban takes over. From rarely seen occupational control rooms to the frontlines of battle to the chaotic Kabul airport during the final U.S. withdrawal, Heineman provides a cinematic and historic window looking out at the conclusion of the longest war waged by the U.S.. and the costs endured for those most intimately involved. 

Heineman set out originally to do quite a different documentary but as situations evolve he adapted and Retrograde emerged. At first, he and his team embedded with a group of U.S. Army Green Berets, intending to bring audiences into the closed world of an elite Special Forces unit. But circumstances changed and the goal became to intimately chronicle the end of our longest war and humanize those people most impacted–as seen through both American and Afghan lenses. When President Biden announced that all U.S. troops would leave Afghanistan, the 12-person Green Beret team that Heineman was embedded with had to begin to “retrograde.” Heineman was also filming General Sami Sadat of the Afghan military who had been working with the Green Berets and was faced with the prospect of having to continue without them. Heineman’s team covered the downfall of the Afghan Army from within. General Sadat remained steadfast, refusing to accept defeat.

Heineman continued to follow the story, remarkably gaining access to a Taliban meeting as the humanitarian crisis escalated. The documentarian was also at the airport in Kabul as people looked to escape with the Taliban having regained power. The desperation, fear and courage exhibited were heart-wrenching. Heineman put a face on the tragedy as civilians as well as Afghan soldiers were unable to get out.

No stranger to crises, being in harm’s way and enabling us to become witness to history, sometimes tragedy, Heineman found himself moved in a way he had never before been. While he has felt emotional on assorted occasions on past documentaries, he had never before shed tears while filming. For the first time, he found himself crying while documenting what was transpiring at the airport. “Seeing thousands of civilians desperately trying to flee,” said Heineman was deeply emotional for anyone present, seeing “impossible Sophie’s choice” decisions” being made on the spot as the Taliban was “watching us at gunpoint… with Isis circling the airport with suicide vests” in preparation for a possible attack.

Heineman described Retrograde as “the hardest film I’ve ever made by far logistically, emotionally and physically.” Beyond what was happening in front of the camera, of paramount concern was keeping his crew safe while operating in a war zone as a country was crumbling.

Yet with all the challenges and emotions, Heineman keeps his documentary orientation intact. Acknowledging that he gets criticized for no "talking heads," not attempting to dissect a situation in terms of how it evolved or who’s at fault, the filmmaker explains that his priority is “to document the moment in time, to do so apolitically. Our world is divided enough.” He instead looks to provide “an entry point for discussion, to create a dialogue” and through that to rationally make  progress. 

The path to dialogue is to put a human face on a situation, to get people “to care, feel and think,” affirmed Heineman who noted that Americans find it easy to keep what’s happening elsewhere “at arm’s length, to metaphorically or literally change the channel.” Heineman said he hopes to help “create a deeper sense of empathy.”

Retrograde, he continued, looms as especially important in that the world’s international attention has turned to Ukraine, which is “one of the most important stories of our lives,” noted Heineman. But in the process, he cautioned, “We seem to forget about the war in Afghanistan and the people we left behind. I hope our film initiates or reinitiates a discussion about Afghanistan.”

Retrograde was recently nominated for The Producers Guild’s Award for Outstanding Producer of Documentary Motion Picture. This is Heineman's third career Producers Guild Award nod, the first two coming in 2018 for City of Ghosts and in 2022 for The First Wave.

This is the 11th installment of a 17-part series with future installments of The Road To Oscar slated to run in the weekly SHOOT>e.dition, The SHOOT Dailies and on SHOOTonline.com, with select installments also in print/PDF issues. The series will appear weekly through the Academy Awards gala ceremony. Nominations for the 95th Academy Awards will be announced on Tuesday, January 24. The 95th Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 12.

MySHOOT Profiles