Through optical printing footage from a 1945 US Navy sponsored film promoting victory Bonds which depicts WWII orphans and intercutting of other documentation, Zero Hour refers to characteristic of current postwar situations, alluding to the avoidance of this depiction by media networks during the Gulf War.

"The transgression and confrontation is re-enacted in this brilliant fuguelike film by Dana Plays constructed of found footage, and concerning both American involvement in oversees conflict and the resultant unseen plight of the child refugee. Subverting state-sponsored informational films on such issues as war bonds and highway safety, Plays transforms these agit-prop rhetorics into a celluloid mirror of transgression as a larger cultural pathology. In Zero Hour, the results -- the products of war return to the initial cite of production: an assumed audience of Americans, middle-class citizens of an ideal suburban dream who have somehow foregone the immediate experiences and repercussion of mass destruction and displacement. The gaze rests on us. We are the sugar-stated, hyper and unaware violator, an audience whose relationship to world events is nowhere more homogenous than in or communal incubation and guilt." - William Tester

Awards:

30th Ann Arbor Film Festival, Tom Berman Award (1992)
Black Maria Film Festival, Director's Citation (1992)
Sinking Creek Film Celebration, Cash Award (1992)

Screenings:

San Francisco Cinematheque at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Curated by Steve Anker
Millennium Personal Cinema Program, New York, NY, 1992, Curated by Howard Guttenplan
Filmforum, Los Angeles, California, Programmed by Thom Anderson
Experimental Film Conference, University of Boulder 1992, Invited by Phil Solomon & Stan Brahkage
Alternative Cinema, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York, Programmed by John Knecht