Donna Musil
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Donna Musil is an independent filmmaker. She wrote and directed "BRATS: Our Journey Home,"[1] the first non-fiction film about growing up the child of a military member, and the profound affect it has on that child's adult life. The feature-length film is narrated by singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson and features interviews with General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, author Mary Edwards Wertsch, psychotherapist Stephanie Donaldson Pressman, and other adult "brats," aged 20 to 70. The film has been screened in over 100 locations around the United States, and has garnered numerous awards and four-star reviews.[2]
Musil is a journalist and attorney by trade. An expert in the field of military "brats," Musil conducts extensive Q&A sessions after screenings of her film and speaks on the topic with a variety of audiences, including current and adult "brats," military, educational, corporate, and mental health care professionals.
The idea for "BRATS: Our Journey Home" took root during Musil's impromptu reunion with her Taegu American High School friends in Washington, DC in 1997. She then read all of the research available at the time, including Mary Wertsch's "Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress," and Stephanie Donaldson Pressman's "The Narcissistic Family," which opened Musil's eyes as to "why she was the way she was." Over the next 5 years, Musil conducted her own independent research, interviewing over 500 military brats of all ages, races, religions, and branches of service, along with other experts in the field, including Wertsch and Pressman.
Musil continues to amass what is probably the largest qualitative database to date on the effects of "growing up military" and "TCK" through the 501(c)(3) non-profit she founded in 1999, Brats Without Borders[3]. In 2008, Brats Without Borders launched the "BRATS Support Network & Discussion Forum"[4] an on-line forum for brats and TCKs of all ages.
Musil was born into a career Army family on April 15, 1960. By the time she was eight, her father, Ltc. Louis F. Musil (deceased), a JAG lawyer and judge, had been away two years of her life, in Korea and Vietnam. By the time she was sixteen, Musil had moved twelve times and lived on three different continents. She grew up an "Army brat" in Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, Korea, Germany, Kentucky, and San Francisco. She attended three different high schools. Ninth grade was spent at Taegu American High School in Taegu, Korea - tenth grade at Ft. Knox, Kentucky - and after her father died of cancer two months after her 16th birthday, Musil finished her third and final year of high school at Columbus High School in Columbus, Georgia. She graduated from the University of Georgia with an A.B. Journalism in 1981 and Juris Doctor in 1985, and is a member of the State Bar of Georgia.
Like many "brats," Musil's career has been an eclectic mix of journalism, law, and writing. She worked as an on-air radio news director, an attorney with the AFL-CIO and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and an executive assistant with Sony Pictures and Castle Rock Entertainment, before pursuing a full-time independent writing and filmmaking career in 1994. She has served on the Board of Directors for Women in Film/Atlanta, and has won writer's fellowships to the Hambidge Center in Georgia, Fundacion Valparaiso in Spain, the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, and Centrum Arts in Port Townsend, Washington. The Executive Director of Brats Without Borders, Musil currently lives in middle Georgia.
Notes
- ^ (http://www.bratsourjourneyhome.com BRATS: Our Journey Home), the first documentary film about growing up the child of a military member, and the profound affect it has on that child's adult life.
- ^ "BRATS: Our Journey Home" Press Coverage, links to press coverage of the documentary "BRATS: Our Journey Home."
- ^ (http://www.bratsourjourneyhome.com/discuss/ Brats Without Borders, Inc.), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization for military "brats" and "third-culture kids."
- ^ BRATS Support Network & Discussion Forum, an on-line forum for military brats and other "third-culture kids."
References
- Pressman, Stephanie Donaldson, "The Narcissistic Family," Jossey-Bass, 1997. ISBN 978-0787908706
- Morten G. Ender, ed. (2002). Military Brats and Other Global Nomads: Growing Up in Organization Families, Westport, Connecticut: Praeger. ISBN 0-275-97266-6
- Musil, Donna (2006). "BRATS: Our Journey Home," Brats Without Borders, Inc. ISBN 0-9774907-1-8
- Smith, Carolyn (ed) (1996). Strangers at Home: Essays on the Effects of Living Overseas and Coming 'Home' to a Strange Land, New York: Aletheia Publications. ISBN 0-9639260-4-7
- Truscott, Mary R (1989). BRATS: Children of the American Military Speak Out," New York, New York: E. P. Dutton. ISBN 0-525-24815-3
- Watanabe, Henry (1985) "A Survey of Adolescent Military Family Members' Self-Image" Journal of Youth and Adolescence Vol 14 No 2 April 1985
- Wertsch, Mary Edwards (1991). Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress, New York, New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 0-517-58400-X. Also, Saint Louis, MO: Brightwell Publishing, 2006, ISBN 0-9776033-0-X.
External Links
- (http://www.bratsfilm.com "BRATS: Our Journey Home") Information about the first non-fiction film about growing up military - and all of the follow-up films.
- (http://www.bratswithoutborders.org Brats Without Borders), information about the 501(c)(3) non-profit organization Brats Without Borders, which helps military "brats" and "third-culture kids."
- (http://www.bratsourjourneyhome.com/discuss.htm Brats Support Network & Discussion Forum), forum for current and adult military brats and other "third-culture kids."
- (http://www.militarybrat.com Military Brats Registry), where military brats can register and find their old friends.
- (http://www.overseasbrats.net/ Overseas Brats], free on-line forum for military brats and overseas brats.
- (http://www.tckid.com TCKid), on-line community for TCKs.
- [http://www.tckacademy.com/class/003/ "Brats: Our Journey Home" Teleconference), an Interview with Writer-Director Donna Musil.