Pleased to announce the release of a World War II short film entitled TURNING POINTS. The summer of 1944 saw three major changes of fortune for German forces fighting on three fronts: the landings in Normandy, the breaking of the siege at Anzio and capture of Rome, and the destruction of Army Group Centre on the Russian Front. The film is a fictional depiction of a small unit action on the Southern Front, between forces of Germany’s Hand Grenade Division and the US-Canadian 1st Special Service Force, as the German forces besieging Anzio pull back to the Alban Hills, and Rome. My thanks to all the local re-enactors - my friends - who agreed to participate over the last two years during principal photography, pick-ups, and voice-over sessions. They loaned time and talent, bringing period firearms, vehicles, clothing and equipment to the screen, along with the considerable motion picture experience many of them have acquired under actual professional directors and production companies in past years. Many war re-enactors are frustrated film-makers and story-tellers, the local First Special Service Force Living History Association is no different. I was pleased four years ago when they helped me bring a documentary about German battle procedure to life by re-enacting an obscure event during the advance on Stalingrad. The result was ATTACK OF THE LEAPING HORSEMAN kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ea5le7mLsKqzmqs.html The desire to do a full fictional story lingered. The pitfalls of the growing number of World War II short films being produced by amateur and professional film makers alike were top of mind as we developed the script. Chief among these, as we saw them, were sometimes long, sometimes dull, consistently depressing shorts with bad acting, over the top special effects, bland characters and thin or non-existent storylines. Could we do better? It was arrogant to think so, but taking the definition of insanity to heart, we opted to do things differently. Voice-over, instead of poorly emoted acting. Fast paced scenes. Layered visuals with payoffs later in the film. No pandering to the audience with expositional dialogue, or even subtitles. Just a story told by two unreliable narrators who viewed the same event through two very different lenses, obscured even further by the fog of war. With that course set, the re-enactors surprised -and impressed - me by improvising on set, often in languages they weren’t even fluent in. Changes were made to the script, to let the actors tell more of the story in their own words and expressive faces, and reduce the overhead of voiceover. Will the story we chose to tell fall flat? I have no idea. But confirmation it might work came from an unusual source. A war veteran wrote to me to provide feedback on a regimental history book I had published during the making of this film. He had served in Afghanistan with the regiment, and candidly, though very much in confidence, told me it was a fine book, but he didn’t much recognize his own experiences in what I had written. He then told me of some of the stupid things that happen in combat zones, and the sometimes dumb ways soldiers occasionally got hurt or killed. It made me think our bit of fiction in this film might not be so far from the mark. Special thanks to many for their help with this film, too many to name here. Apologies if the official credits and the video description should have captured you, but didn’t. TURNING POINTS is now done, after two years of the madness known as “editing.” It is said films are never finished, they just escape. That is equally true here. Much more could have been done by me. If I have failed my friends by veering off the path to unattainable perfection too soon, I apologize for that too. I'll get it right for you the next time, boys.

A pleasure to finally see the finished cut! Turned out far better than you let on. Curious that a footnote-story amongst what amounts to a footnote-story like this can yield such a compelling narrative. It's a great snapshot of the time, the place and the players as a result. It was a joy to work on this with you, Michael. Looking forward to the next one.

Proud to have helped out on this. Excellent work, my friend!

Looks Great! Gave a thumbs up. Now I'll watch!

Well done

Looks and feels like a docudrama, very cool👌

Great film, I like the narration over footage format you went with here.

Sharing this everywhere. This is excellent, as is all of your work. And it completely meets and surpasses the high standard you have already set in Attack of the Leaping Horsemen, which I have forwarded to many and have watched at least a dozen times.

Thank you.

Great video love the detail of the video

par excellence.

Excellent!

You know The Professor must have been obsessed with Kant and how Hitler’s thought was or was not in line with it.

Amazing job!

Amazing job keep them coming and if I may can I ask you something

Well done