Rogue Creamery Audience Award: Best Documentary

In 2008, twenty veterans and their families - from Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam gathered for a five day healing retreat in Southern Oregon. Michael Meade, mythologist and story teller, facilitates the experience - incorporating stories and rituals from traditional cultures. As he encourages the vets to explore the darkness of their memories, we are invited in to understand the veterans' world and their pain, as well as their hope. Finally, on Memorial Day the vets travel into Ashland where they present themselves and their poetry to a sold out audience at Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Angus Bowmer Theatre. At the end, joined in song with the audience, amid thunderous applause and a standing ovation, the veterans are powerfully witnessed; the final symbolic welcoming required to complete the return home. [adult content, language]