Francine Parker - F.T.A.

F.T.A.

Francine Parker's documentary of the Free The Army tour condensed weeks worth of footage and traveling into a ninety minute film. This film did feature anti-war celebrities, such as Jane Fonda, but much of the screen time was also devoted to the reactions disillusioned American servicemen. Parker filmed F.T.A. as she traveled with the tour onto American military bases in the eastern Pacific. Like the tour, FTA stood for Free The Army, though the thousands of soldiers featured in the film and the tour often used profanities when repeating the title. The film was co-produced by Francine Parker, Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland.

Parker's film debuted in 1972, the same week that actress Jane Fonda controversially visited Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam. However, the film was pulled from theaters by American International Pictures just weeks later under what fellow filmmaker David Zeiger called "questionable circumstances."

F.T.A. was screened years later at a Directors Guild of America screening in 2005. At the screening, director Oliver Stone said that Francine Parker had concluded that "calls were made from high up in Washington, possibly from the Nixon White House, and the film just disappeared." Jane Fonda also commented after viewing the film in 2005 that, "I must say, looking at it now, it's no wonder," that the film was pulled from theaters.

Director David Zeiger incoprorated footage from Parker's film into his own 2005 film, Sir! No Sir!, which explored the anti-war movement spearheaded by soldiers in the 1960s and 1970s. Zeiger called Parker's film "a lost classic that has real resonance today."

F.T.A. was screened again at the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam on November 22, 2007. Francine Parker had been scheduled to attend before her death earlier in the same month.