Joshua DeFour
Director
Biography
Joshua DeFour has been making films since his first years in college, eventually dropping out of a journalism bachelor’s program in December 2010 to join the U.S. Marine Corps as a combat videographer and broadcast journalist. After leaving the Corps in March 2014, he was hired by Fathead, LLC., and created collaborative video spots with Warner Bros. Pictures in support of the Harry Potter brand and a Father’s Day veterans feature in conjunction with Operation Homefront. After being accepted into the University of Texas at Austin’s MFA program in August 2015, DeFour completed his first festival-circuit short films, “MATCH: A Tinder Tale,” “Baby Girl,” and “10 Minutes To Show.” His fourth film, “Plunge,” was completed in December 2017.
Films
The 11th Order (2018)
Role: Director
On the morning of April 22, 2008, Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, 19, and Corporal Jonathan Yale, 21, volunteered to stand guard at Joint Security Station Nasser in the heart of Ramadi, Iraq. Haerter had just gotten into country a few days prior, while Yale had already logged seven months into his tour. The two men had barely gotten acquainted when an oil truck barreled through the serpentine and headed toward the post, where dozens of sleeping Marines and Iraqi police laid unaware.
From archived security video footage, Iraqi guards at the gate immediately flee the scene and take cover in concrete berms—they survive. In the six seconds it takes for the truck to approach the gate, both Marines open fire and engage the driver to the very last second. In the end, the truck is abruptly brought to a halt just outside the gate…detonating in an explosion that blows out the windows of every nearby building. Both Haerter and Yale are killed in the blast, but 150 Marines and Iraqi police remain safe and alive within the walls of JSS Nasser. LCpl. Haerter and Cpl. Yale were posthumously awarded the Navy Cross.
The 11th Order will offer multiple perspectives surrounding this true event of sacrifice, heroism, and humanity in the face of uncertain violence. Less about glorifying war or the event itself, this film will provide context to the unimaginable: to show these young men as everyday people put in extraordinary circumstances, and explain why there was never doubt in their actions and decisive sacrifice.
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