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[Gunner Palace] is an intimate tale of the chaotic, stressful and surreal lives of a troop of American soldiers in Iraq. The 2/3 Field Artillery, AKA the 'Gunners', lives in Uday Hussein's Azimiya Palace, in the most hostile part of Baghdad. Four months after President Bush declared the end of 'major combat operations', the soldiers continue to live and die through what they jokingly call 'minor combat'. Their residence - a bombed out palace complete with swimming pool and putting green - provides a surreal backdrop to the soldiers' stories. War has become a constant in their lives. During the day they roll out on patrol to face an indifferent population, and by night they go on raids. Daily they suffer attacks, or tend the wounded and orphaned. A good day at Gunner Palace is when nothing happens.
Filmed over two one-month periods, [Gunner Palace] delivers up the absurdities and personal tales of the much-maligned war in Iraq, and it shares a certain something with such seminal war films as [Three Kings], [Platoon] and [Apocalypse Now]. --- D Michael Tucker, Petra Epperlein P Nomados Film, Petra Epperlein WS Cinetic Media TD 35mm/col/2004/85mins
Michael Tucker was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, and Petra Epperlein was born in Karl Marx Stadt, Germany. [Gunner Palace] (2004) is their first feature documentary.