Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "Day One" is an American 25-minute short film from 2015. It was directed and co-written by Henry Hughes and he scored his first Oscar nomination for that. Actually, it is only his second work and second short film as a director, so quite a success I guess. The film is partially in the English language and also in Dari, so you may want a good set of subtitles. This is the tale of an interpreter who faces the most unusual first day at work in her new profession. The plot already summarizes it. She and her unit of soldiers meet a group of enemies, possibly terrorists. They may have bombs with them. A women of the enemy group is pregnant, on the verge of giving birth. The interpreter has to help her with giving birth. The child is presumed dead. Apparently there is no heartbeat. Then the child is suddenly alive, but another character is suddenly dead. And let us keep in mind: This is only the very first day of her work. So realism is a crucial component or I should maybe say the lack of realism unfortunately and this is what eventually destroys the movie. At some point it felt just like one dramatic scene chasing the next, so it all was very much for the sake of it and the authenticity was kinda gone. Lets be honest here: The action would even be over-the-top for a 90-minute film, let alone for a film under 30 minutes. Overall, I don't think this is a bad film. it has its moments and strengths, like the atmosphere or the contemporary relevance and others, so I am still a bit curious about Hughes' future works. But this one here has weaknesses that should have kept it from getting recognition at any awards body, especially the Oscars. I don't recommend the watch.

Michael_Elliott Day One (2015) *** 1/2 (out of 4) Of all the live action Oscar nominated shorts this one here from Henry Hughes is certainly the most unpleasant. It deals with a woman named Feda (Layla Alizada) who is on her first tour in Afghanistan working as an interpreter. She ends up at the home of a bomb maker where she's just expecting to translate but soon the man's pregnant wife goes into labor.DAY ONE is a fairly grim and graphic tale that could have very well gone down the road of exploitation and been one of the more disgusting entries in that genre. However, it doesn't go down that path and instead turns into a pretty frank and brutal character study as we get to see various obstacles this woman goes through on her first day on the job. What really helps the movie are the terrific performance by the entire cast. It's certainly not a very easy film to watch but it really pays off in the end.

Steve Pulaski Co-writer and director Henry Hughes realized his filmmaking dream after his two tours of duty in Afghanistan, and with a little assistance from Star Wars creator George Lucas, crafted his pipe-dream of a short film into a reality with a potential for an Oscar. The result is Day One, a mostly effective short film revolving around an interpreter for the United States Army, who is put in the compromising position when she is forced to deliver a baby for an enemy bombmaker's wife. The baby's position has shifted in the mother's uterus, to the point where its hand is sticking out of the mother's crotch without any discernible pulse. The only option, as told by the doctor, is to cut the baby's arm off and extract its corpse piece-by-piece.The horrifying bloodbath races through the mind of the woman (Layla Alizada), who never believed she'd have to do anything close to this. Time is running out, the mother is in excruciating pain, and dread and uncertainty looms over the household like a gray cloud.For the first half of its twenty-five minute runtime, Hughes prefers to capture the situation in a way that's largely naturalistic; one that emphasizes ambient noise and appropriate sounds of the location rather than mawkish music. However, but the third act, the short slowly devolves into incredulous territory, where the impossible becomes the possible and the conflict at hand is solved all too easily. The circumstance that was potentially catastrophic a moment ago has turned into optimism ripe for emotional exploitation and the short concludes down a path I was crossing my fingers it wouldn't take the whole time.Still, Day One is worth it for the strong performance by Alizada, who manages to command the screen pretty admirably throughout the entire film, and Hughes really knows how to craft an unforgivably tense environment. With that, Day One seems like its inching towards greatness only to hesitantly back off in favor of a safer route most people would find easier to swallow.

Dave McClain "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"