Professor John Benitz

Professor John Benitz

We’re thrilled to celebrate the success of Behind the Lines, a powerful documentary directed by John Benitz, a professor in CoPA’s Theatre department. The film was recently awarded Best Documentary at the Croatia International Film Festival, a momentous achievement for a project that originated right here at Chapman.

The documentary—narrated by Annette Bening and featuring performances by Laura Dern, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Michael C. Hall, and others—brings to life real wartime letters spanning from the American Revolution to today. Its origins trace back to the CoPA stage production, If All the Sky Were Paper (2018), which was developed from these same letters and co-created by Professor Benitz and Andrew Carroll, founder of the Legacy Project.

“I’m excited people are enjoying the film,” says Benitz. “It’s been an important and meaningful project for me since the beginnings at Chapman… Now that the film is getting traction, I’m hopeful more people will be as moved and changed by these war letters as I have been.”

For Behind the Lines, Benitz himself was nominated for Best Director of a Feature Documentary at the Woodstock Film Festival, and the film was a finalist for the Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film, earning $25,000 in funding. Behind the Lines has also received widespread media attention, including features in Variety, People, and Collider.

We are proud to honor this achievement of Professor John Benitz and highlight the exceptional caliber of CoPA faculty—artists and educators who are not only mentors to our students, but also active professionals creating impactful work on a global level.