THE WAR AT HOME chronicles the awakening and growth of the Vietnam protest movement in the United States, from a handful of politically active students, to the street confrontations at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, to the killings at Kent State. Through both newsreel and current footage, we follow participants from all sides - students, police, and political figures of the time - as they face each other in growing confrontation.

This was a time of profound change in America, when the Civil Rights movement set the tone of the early 1960s. Civil disobedience, sit-ins and marches became accepted methods of arousing social conscience - and forcing political change from grass roots activism.

In its wake came Vietnam. In the beginning it was the hidden war, an afterthought to the America public, obscured by less than candid pronouncements of Asian policy from successive administrations. In the end, it became the largest domestic conflict since the Civil War in the history of the United States.

THE WAR AT HOME is an historical case history, a statement of the motivation and anatomy of a mass movement. The film uses archival television news footage from both fronts; the war in Vietnam and the protest movement in the United States. Events taking place at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison, are used as a microcosm of the national protest movement throughout the 60s and early 70s. THE WAR AT HOME touches on many issues: the moral climate of the time, individual responsibility, citizen/government interaction on foreign policy issues, options available in a free society. The film is narrated by those who were involved on all sides, and provides an in-depth examination of an unsettling era and its current implications.

"THE WAR AT HOME can only grow in importance with the passage of time. It should be reviewed at regular intervals, so that each generation may understand what its parents felt and how they acted."—The Nation

"This brilliant documentary is valuable contemporary history... THE WAR AT HOME demonstrates that it is possible to cut through all the romantic nonsense about the Sixties and get to some approximation of fact... in some respect it is the best American film of the year!"—Boston Globe

"An extremely important film of profound and ongoing implications.... This turbulent decade has been superbly evoked... by taking a classical approach - diligent research, extraordinary archive footage, and pertinent interviews."—Los Angeles Times

"More than a mere exercise in political nostalgia... Using the embattled city of Madison, Wisconsin as a paradigm for the political turmoils of the 60s, the film traces the growing resistance to the war in Vietnam... refreshingly different in its sense of emotion recollected in tranquility."—Newsweek

"As pertinent today as it will be 30 years from now."—EFLA Evaluations