Occupation: Dreamland
Encyclopedia
Occupation: Dreamland is a "grunt's-eye view," 2005 documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 focused on a company of the 1/505
505th Parachute Infantry Regiment
The 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment is one of four infantry regiments of the 82nd Airborne Division of the United States Army.Activated in 1942, the regiment participated in the campaigns of Sicily, Salerno, Normandy, Holland and the Battle of the Bulge during World War II...

 of the 82nd Airborne Division in Fallujah
Fallujah
Fallujah is a city in the Iraqi province of Al Anbar, located roughly west of Baghdad on the Euphrates. Fallujah dates from Babylonian times and was host to important Jewish academies for many centuries....

, Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

, in early 2004. It is directed by Ian Olds and Garrett Scott.

The title comes from the nickname of the base, Camp Volturno, on the outskirts of Fallujah. The American soldiers housed there called the place "Camp Dreamland." The film includes interviews with US soldiers, footage of their patrols in Fallujah, as well as interviews with Iraqi civilians.

Occupation was at first received with discomfort in the avant-garde film community, many in the largely liberal group viewed it as too sympathetic towards American foot soldiers and therefore it was seen as not sufficiently critical of the Iraq war. With time the film has gained a diehard following among various communities: film-buffs, intellectuals, peaceniks and Iraq vets as well as military families .

Garrett Scott died of a heart attack at age 37 in 2005, days before Occupation won the Independent Spirit Award
Independent Spirit Awards
The Independent Spirit Awards , founded in 1984, are awards dedicated to independent filmmakers. Winners were typically presented with acrylic glass pyramids containing suspended shoestrings representing the paltry budgets of independent films. In 1986, the event was renamed the Independent Spirit...

. Ian Olds has written and directed several short fiction films and is now working on a documentary about journalists in Afghanistan.

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