"Day One" (USA, 20 min.) – In Afghanistan, a young female interpreter experiences an especially dramatic first day on the job working with U.S. soldiers. She starts off on the wrong foot by using the shower at the wrong time, then struggles to understand the expectations and procedures of her new environment. On her first mission with the squad to which she is assigned, she delays their march when she has to stop to urinate, she's almost killed by an IED, she has to translate during a heated exchange between her squad's leader and an Afghan man who is a suspected insurgent and then she is forced to help the man's pregnant wife when she suddenly goes into labor and the first part of the baby to emerge is its arm. Written and directed by a former U.S. Army paratrooper as a tribute to one of his unit's former interpreters, this is a personal and powerful look at the challenges of modern warfare. "A"
