International award-winning director Ryan Little will be at Georgia Southern University for a public screening of his latest film, “Saints and Soldiers: The Void” Tuesday evening.
Little will answer questions from the audience. The 6:30-8:30 p.m. program in the Arts Building Auditorium, Arts 2071, is being presented by the GSU Department of History and the Campus Life Enrichment Committee.
“The Void” is set in the last days of World War II in Europe in May 1945. While the immediate conflict is between U.S. troops and desperate German soldiers, the film also explores the void between African-American soldiers and their white counterparts.
Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Little began his directing career with “The Last Good War,” a short film that received two awards at the 1999 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences College Awards. In 2004 he directed his first feature film, “Saints and Soldiers.” It garnered “Best Picture” awards at multiple film festivals, two nominations at the Independent Spirit Awards and the $100,000 grand prize at the Heartland Film Festival. Among his several other TV and film credits, Little recently directed two episodes of the TV series “Granite Flats,” which aired in May. He is currently developing a new TV series, entitled “Zeros,” with NBC Universal.
Dr. Michael Van Wagenen, now a GSU History Department assistant professor, first met Little 17 years ago, when he was a film student. Van Wagenen said he looks forward to sharing the director’s talents with the community.
“As a documentary filmmaker and a historian, I was able to help him with his first project ‘The Last Good War,’ which subsequently won the Student Emmy Award in 1999,” Van Wagenen said. “Ryan is particularly skilled at creating historical period films on budgets that would terrify most producers.”