The Quiet After

A film by Gary Bryman

The Quiet After image

About the project:

The Quiet After is a real-life love story set against the backdrop of the catastrophic wars that continue to define the present moment. We’ll see our subjects, Alex Potter (a war photographer) and Pete Reed (a humanitarian medic), travel the world and take us into thematic territory we know well from tragic love narratives that have resonated across time.

Between our couple, colleagues, friends, and family, we have a unique collective experience in conflict-zone filmmaking and access to hours of intimate, first-person, archival footage. We’ll juxtapose these personal moments of their love story with present-day scenes of Alex as she grieves, heals, and rebuilds her life anew after Pete’s untimely death in the line of duty, using a striking parallel narrative technique to heighten the deep feeling and transformative power at the heart of our film.

This film is an intimate portrait of our subjects as feeling, loving, imperfect humans, coming together in the midst of the most demanding circumstances imaginable. Despite the tragic events of the film, it is not a tragedy. Our tone is courageous, human, and deeply inspiring — showing moments of love, laughter, and connection in the most dangerous and unlikely places.

The world has never seen a love story like this firsthand, where love and war intertwine, both in metaphor and heartbreaking reality.