David Bradbury's FRONTLINE (54 mins, 1980) was nominated for a Best Documentary Oscar in 1981. An account of the Vietnam war as seen through the camera of Australian journalist Neil Davis who spent 11 years in the combat zone, the film examines the ethical issues facing a man in the frontline who is not an active combatant.
Davis's footage, combined with his recollections, are a testimony to the horrors of war. He was committed to showing the war from the Vietnamese and Cambodian perspectives to try and balance the coverage by the broadcasting networks, which tended to show only the United States involvement. Forming a deep attachment to the soldiers he lived among, Davis was even permitted to cross enemy lines and film the other side of war, with the Viet Cong.
The only Western journalist to film the fall of Saigon, it was Davis's iconic footage of the first North Vietnamese communist tank crashing through the Presidential palace in Saigon that told the world the war was finally over. When FRONTLINE was broadcast nationally in America and Australia, public interest was overwhelming.
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DAVID BRADBURY, Frontline Films, began his career in 1972 as an ABC radio journalist and has since produced 21 documentary films, including many tackling difficult political issues and highlighting the plight of the disadvantaged. David has won many international film festival prizes, received five AFI awards, and two Academy Award nominations.
