From Infantryman to Filmmaker: TFS Grad Martin Spriggs Wins Multiple Awards for Afghan War Documentary
From the battlefield to the big screen, Class of 2022 Video Production grad Martin Spriggs is proving himself a rising force in Canadian documentary filmmaking.
The Gulf War veteran and retired infantryman and paratrooper recently celebrated his first film festival win with his second feature-length documentary, White School Black Memories | A Canadian Soldier’s Story from Afghanistan.
It recently took home Best Documentary at the Western Canadian International Film Festival in Edmonton. It also won the Best Canadian Film Audience Award at Sudbury’s Junction North International Documentary Film Festival and was named a semi-finalist at the Seattle Film Festival.
“As a filmmaker, I enjoy bringing veterans’ stories to the screen,” Spriggs said of the film, which is based on Company Sergeant Major John Barnes‘ best-selling book of the same name. “Most Canadians have little idea of what the Canadian Armed Forces do and the quality of Canadians who serve in the forces. I’m on a mission to change that.”
That mission found a launching pad at Toronto Film School, where Spriggs enrolled in 2020 after a 20-year career in healthcare and a stint as a semi-professional photographer.
“When I started the program, I had literally no experience in video production,” he said. “Three years later, I’ve made an award-winning documentary. Truly, I owe it all to TFS.”
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White School Black Memories – which has garnered more than 36,000 views on YouTube – recounts the harrowing experiences of the Royal Canadian Regiment battle group during Operation Medusa, one of the most intense battles of the war in Afghanistan.
Told through the voices of the soldiers of Charles Company who fought on the frontlines, Spriggs’s documentary brings to life stories of courage, sacrifice, and survival during the Second Battle of Panjwai in 2006.
For Spriggs, who spent 15 years serving in the Canadian Army, telling this story was a full circle moment.
“As a young soldier, I cut my teeth in Charles Company, 1st Battalion Royal Canadian Regiment, for my first three years as an infantryman,” he explained.
“I also served alongside John Barnes on a peacekeeping mission in the Balkans in the early 1990s. We opened the airport in Sarajevo to allow food aid flights into the city in 1993. Although we weren’t close friends, I knew he was a well-respected soldier and an all-around good guy.”
You can watch White School Black Memories on YouTube and follow Spriggs’ ongoing projects at travelbagphotography.com, Instagram, and Facebook.
