Part of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s mission is to foster greater understanding through world cinema. This year 72 Foreign Language films were submitted for Golden Globes consideration. Here is an overview of one of them.

Here in the USA we are used to associating recent and current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with American “boots on the ground”. Less is known about boots other than American on the same ground. In the case of the Danish film A War, these are Danish boots fighting in Afghanistan under NATO command.

A War sheds light on the tragic consequences of war on all its participants – from Danish soldiers and Afghan civilians to the families and loved ones left behind in Denmark.

Almost like in a documentary, we follow Danish company commander sergeant Claus Michael Pedersen and his men who are fighting in an Afghan province. Back in Denmark, Claus' wife Maria (Tuva Novotny) is trying to hold everyday family life together with an absent husband at war and three children who miss their father.

During a routine patrol, the soldiers are caught in a heavy crossfire with the Taliban. In order to save his men, Claus makes a split decision to call for American air support. That decision has grave consequences for him – and his family back home – because the air attack causes some civilian deaths. In this era of “political correctness” Danish military authorities decide to persecute Pedersen because he supposedly broke an engagement rule by calling for air attack, not clearly seeing where the enemy fire was coming from. The man who just tried to save his underlings in the fog of war now is judged as a war criminal.

Actor Pilou Asbæk plays the lead as the sergeant in trouble. It’s his third collaboration with the director Tobias Lindholm. As a writer, Lindholm was behind director Thomas Vinterberg's The Hunt (2013). Lindholm's writing credits also include the international hit TV show Borgen (2010-13) remade in the U.S. as The Bridge, and Vinterberg's upcoming The Commune due to be released in 2016. Among Lindholm’s future projects is the Berlin Wall drama The Tunnels, which Lindholm is going to write for director Paul Greengrass of the Bourne trilogy fame.

Serge Rakhlin