Guus Bosman

The first documentary I saw on Full Frame this year was Lioness, a film about female soldiers in the U.S. army deployed in Iraq. It is directed and produced by Meg McLagan and Daria Sommers.

The policy of the U.S. military is that female personnel cannot participate in direct combat. This documentary shows how difficult it is to maintain such a policy and what it means for those involved. The films shows the experiences of women in various roles in the Iraq War, from a base commander to soldiers in desk positions who are then assigned to Team Lioness, and are asked to join in ground operations to help calm down female civilians down and perform security checks on women if necessary.

An important problem with the official policy is that the women have received far less training than the men and this brings them into problems. A striking example of this is shown when one of them is asked to join a combat mission with the Marines and finds herself isolated from her combat group in a battle because of this lack of training.

The film shows the cost of going to war for soldiers, not only for those who die but also for those who come back and find it difficult to adjust. An impressive film.