The Vietnam War turned Ron "Stray Dog” Hall’s life upside-down. The sixty-something biker from Missouri still has nightmares and cries when he recalls his battlefield buddies. His struggle with a tragic past comes down to remembering the fallen and helping victims and their families. Hall is also a committed local activist, who attempts to help everyone. In his free time, he cares for a pack of adorable dogs and studies Spanish. His wife, Alice, is from Mexico, and the couple speaks in two languages like a true partnership. In the film Stray Dog, Debra Granik takes on the issue of dealing with a multi-year war trauma also in the context of modern armed conflicts. At the same time, she uses Hall’s biography to break the stereotype of a biker tough guy, a veteran and all-around American hero.
Los Angeles FF 2014 – Jury Documentary Prize
Debra Granik was born in 1963 in Cambridge, Massachusetts and graduated in 1985 with a degree in Politics from Brandeis University and later earned an MFA from the graduate film program at New York University (Tisch School of the Arts), and took part in the Writer’s and Director’s Lab at the Sundance Institute. During her studies, she debuted with the short Snake Feed and several years later she won the Best Director Award at the Sundance Film Festival for her first feature-length film Down to the Bone. Granik's second feature, Winter's Bone, received four Oscar nominations in 2011.
1997 Snake Feed (short)
2004 Aż do kości / Down to the Bone
2010 Do szpiku kości / Winter’s Bone
2014 Przybłęda / Stray Dog (doc.)