No Greater Love World Premiere

31st Boston Film Festival

New England Aquarium (IMAX)

September 19, 2015 at 6:00 PM—Red Carpet Start Time

The documentary, No Greater Love, will premiere at Boston Film Festival 2015 at 6:30pm on the 19th of September, 2015. No Greater Love is a feature-length documentary film that tells the story of Chaplain (Capt.) Justin Roberts’s deployment to Afghanistan in 2010–2011 with the legendary “No Slack” Battalion, 101st Airborne Division. Justin was one of my Media Arts students at DTS, and from the first time I met him, I could see he had a gift for storytelling. One of his earliest films—produced with classmates in my Advanced Creative Writing course— was about how to write fiction. They amused themselves by including a close-up of my contraception book. . . . But I digress.U.S. Army chaplains do not carry weapons. Instead, Roberts went to combat with his guys carrying a camera so he could document hardships that the paratroopers endured. The 800-man battalion came home with more than 200 purple hearts (awarded for injuries sustained in combat) and suffered 18 casualties.Upon return, Roberts and his associates embarked on a journey around the U.S. to speak with the soldiers, and rally the unit together to heal old wounds. The first film they did was "The Hornet's Nest." Now this. . . .“I can’t make sense of everything that’s gone on in this war," Roberts said. "But I understood America so much more on the mountaintops of Afghanistan—what we stand for. People coming from all types of backgrounds, and all types of races and religions, and all of these different individuals coming together as brothers and sisters—I witnessed that, I saw that. I wish we could have that here somehow, and I don’t know how. But I understood America on those mountaintops. I was proud. I was honored.”Roberts’s combat footage is layered with honest, gritty, heartfelt interviews with the soldiers of “No Slack,” and the families of the fallen. This footage was shot in combat in Kunar Province, Afghanistan 2010–2011."No Greater Love" is directed by an active duty soldier, and it is told by the men he served with in their own words— what it’s was like to serve in Afghanistan, and what it’s like returning to civilian life after serving in combat. "This film is about what we fought for" said “No Slack” Infantryman and "No Greater Love" Production Assistant Sgt. Bob Evans.DTS is sending me to Boston for the premier. Another dear former student who just started a job at a church in Boston is hosting me for the weekend. Please say a prayer for Justin. A lot of what motivates this project is his heart to help people returning from war with both visible and invisible wounds.(At the end of the video, you will see a link to pre-order, which is broken. I'm not aware of a way to pre-order at this time.)