Ryan M. Kennedy directed the film from a script he spent two years developing while working full-time as a waiter at a Midtown Manhattan restaurant. He showed the finished draft to a French cinematographer Nicolas Canton living in New York City and the two began planning to produce the film with a small sum of their own money. After receiving a copy of the script in January 2011, a local producer, Atit Shah offered to partner with Kennedy and the two began to work on expanding the scope of the project.[4]
Kennedy had rented a production space in Brooklyn prior to meeting Shah, an expense Shah felt was unnecessary. Unable to break the lease, production designer Robert Dancy converted the raw space into two different key locations within the movie and the space proved to be a big win for production.[4]
The film was shot on the Arri Alexa over a period of 32 days. Additional filming took place in various locations around Manhattan, and in upstate NY near Red Hook.
Release and reception
The film was released on Video on Demand and DVD March 31, 2015 and on Netflix July 15, 2015.
An Act of War received generally favorable reviews. Aaron Peterson of The Hollywood Outsider wrote, “a harrowing journey of a film that demands to be seen”.[6] Henrick Vartanian of Brave New Hollywood praised the film's depiction of soldiers with posttraumatic stress disorder writing, “this film makes the complexity of the tormented soldier comprehensible to everyday public”.[7]
The Movie Waffler reported, "An Act of War is skillfully scripted and sensitively acted. Prior to its release, the picture won four film festival awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor at the New York-based Take Two Film Festival.[citation needed]
