Navy Veteran Turned Acting Student Andrew Iddon Brings Silent Film Honouring Lost Shipmates to Screen
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For nine years, Andrew Iddon served in the Royal Canadian Navy as a Naval Electronic Sensor Operator specializing in Surface Weapons and Electronic Warfare, completing two overseas tours and navigating everything from hunting Russian submarines in the Black Sea to conducting operations off the coast of Syria.
Today, the Acting for Film, TV & the Theatre student at Toronto Film School (TFS) is channeling those experiences into a different kind of mission – one that honours the memories of the lost comrades he served alongside.
His short film The Battle Within, which screened at the TFS Cinema during this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, is a haunting 5:29 silent tribute to four fellow service members who lost their battles with PTSD and depression.
“Not all battles are fought on distant fields in foreign lands,” Iddon said of the film, which he wrote, directed and produced. “Everyone’s fighting a battle you can’t see…especially military personnel. Some of them can’t leave the battlefield, even when they go home. The fight’s still going on in their head, even when they’re sitting around the kitchen table with family and friends.”
A Journey from Sea to Screen
Iddon’s path to TFS was an unconventional one, to say the least. In 2015, facing limited job prospects in his hometown, the then-25-year-old from Brockville, Ontario decided to follow in his father’s military footsteps. His dad, a British Royal Air Force veteran who served in the Falklands War, had always had the best stories.
“I was a stand-up comedian – obviously not a very successful one, otherwise I wouldn’t have joined the Navy,” Iddon joked. “But I realized I didn’t know anything. I’d barely been outside Canada. I needed work, and I needed adventure.”
Within weeks of switching his application from the Air Force to the Navy, Iddon was in boot camp. Within a year, he found himself in Bermuda. Another year after that, he was sailing patrols around Syria. Over his nine-year career, he visited more than 25 countries, spent six to seven months at a time at sea, and experienced moments that now feel like they happened in another lifetime.
“The longest stint I did at sea was when we were hunting a Russian submarine for 28 days in a row – no laundry, no flushing toilets, and no contact with the outside world,” he recalled. “It’s crazy to think about now. It feels like I’m making it up when I’m telling some of these stories. Some of them sound so insane, it’s like, ‘Did I actually do that?’ But yeah, I did.”
Transitioning to Toronto Film School
For Iddon, the transition from military life to acting school hasn’t been without its challenges. He describes the shift from “straight lines and 90-degree angles” to creative expression as initially jarring.
“I make the joke that I was a leader of men, operating weapons and tactics, and now here I am going ‘wahh’ with my face in acting class,” he laughed. “If my officer happened to see me now, what would he say?”
That said, Iddon said his military background has proven surprisingly valuable in the acting studio. He’s taught boot camp classes to his classmates six or seven times, helping with everything from marching sequences in his class’s recent stage production of Animal Farm to understanding discipline and teamwork. The skills translate more than he expected.
“It’s like choreography,” he explains. “Marching and moving in the military with weapons – it’s all just a dance. A really stiff dance.”
What drew Iddon to TFS was the school’s “wicked” 25 per cent Canadian Forces Bursary, coupled with the military’s Education and Training Benefit, which provides educational funding for veterans completing at least six years of service. With free GO Transit for veterans and Toronto’s thriving film industry, the decision made sense practically for the Pickering-based aspiring actor.
But emotionally, it was about pursuing a dream he’d put aside when “the real world knocked on the front door.”
“I had too many chiefs and officers tell me, ‘I wish I was a firefighter’ or ‘I wish I did that,'” Iddon reflects. “I didn’t want to have regrets…I would rather have tried and failed than not tried at all.”
Bringing The Battle Within to the Screen
When instructors mentioned the silent film assignment in his first term, Iddon knew immediately what he wanted to create. Set in a stark, snow-covered purgatory reminiscent of a First World War battlefield, The Battle Within follows a soldier haunted by the ghosts of fallen comrades who try to coax him into giving up his fight.
The four ghosts in the film represent the four real sailors Iddon dedicated the film to. Shot in February in brutal cold with a tight crew of just three people, the production was as challenging as it was meaningful.
“I wanted to tell the stories (of veterans battling PTSD), because maybe they seem distant, maybe they seem like a bit of a jerk, but it could be because there’s something going on in there that they can’t get rid of,” Iddon says. “Everyone’s fighting a battle you can’t see. Robin Williams said that.”
While Iddon is careful not to claim Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for himself, he acknowledges his own struggles with the transition from military to civilian life – including night terrors, moments of dissociation, and the difficulty of accepting having “no purpose” after years of critical responsibility at sea.
“When I was at sea, I had a really important job. People relied on me,” he explained. “Now I wake up on a Saturday and stare at the wall wondering, ‘What do I do?’ I don’t have anybody to report to. I have no direction sometimes.”
He said he chose to set the film during World War I because that’s when shell shock – what we now call PTSD – first became widely recognized. The black-and-white cinematography shifts to color only when the protagonist sees his family, reminding him of what he’s still fighting for.
When the film screened for his class, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. The response has been overwhelmingly positive, with both classmates and military friends expressing how much the film resonated.
“I wasn’t trying to make an Oscar film or purposely get people to cry,” Iddon says. “But it was good that people were feeling something. That’s the key to being an artist.”
Remembrance Day Reflections
This will be Iddon’s second Remembrance Day since leaving the military, and, for him, the day has taken on new meaning. While serving, it was about showing pride in uniform and marching in parades. Now, it’s more reflective.
“Last year, I went to the beach and just sat there looking out at the horizon, just remembering,” he shares. “Since leaving, Remembrance Day has gotten a lot more sentimental. You’re seeing the people still doing the job that you left, and you’re like, ‘Good for you guys. Keep at it.'”
He also hosted a special stream last Remembrance Day, sharing military stories and photos with viewers, including old friends he’d served with who hadn’t seen each other in years. It was an emotional experience that helped him process everything he’d been through.
“Looking at old photos, you’re like, ‘Oh my God.’ It unlocks memories,” he says. “I got kind of emotional because it was a lot.”
Looking Ahead
Currently in his sixth and final term at Toronto Film School, Iddon has ambitious plans he wants to execute on before he graduates. He’s currently working on another military-themed short film about the Napoleonic Wars, while also doing voice acting work for community video game mods.
After graduation, he plans to spend two months in Australia and New Zealand before diving into the agency hunt.
“I’ll try my luck for a couple years,” he says. “I really like the idea of being a character actor in a TV show – like Hitchcock or Scully from Brooklyn Nine-Nine.”
For other veterans considering a similar transition, his advice is simple: “It’s never too late. At least try. The military’s not going anywhere – it’ll always be there if you need to come back. But have a plan.”
As for The Battle Within, Iddon has submitted it to several film festivals and hopes to eventually share it more widely, though he wants to first ensure the families of the four men he honored would be comfortable with it.
“I want to make sure I did them justice,” he said. “I wanted to respect them in the film. Hopefully I did.”
Based on the overwhelming response from those who’ve seen it, there’s little doubt he succeeded.
Follow Iddon – aka “Admiral Iddy” – on YouTube, Twitch and Instagram.
