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“By chronicling my own personal struggle to know my father, I hope to raise awareness. It is estimated that there are nearly 20,000 Americans who lost fathers in the Vietnam War. The loss we have endured is real. And so is the opportunity for us to heal. Our fathers were young men with blemishes and fears, who faced difficult choices, who fought in a war that wounded a nation and that many now want to forget, and who wanted more than anything to come home to us.”
BE GOOD, SMILE PRETTY is Tragos’ directorial debut. The film premiered at the 2003 IFP Los Angeles Film Festival, where it won the Best Documentary Feature award. Tragos was also awarded the President’s Award for Excellence in Documentary Film from Vietnam Veterans of America for her work on the film. On Veteran’s Day 2003, BE GOOD, SMILE PRETTY had its U.S. broadcast premiere on the PBS series Independent Lens.
Tragos started her career at DreamWorks, SKG, where she rose through the ranks from an assistant to a writer/producer on story-based CD-ROMs. Her credits there include Dilbert’s Desktop Games, Goosebumps: Escape from Horrorland starring Jeff Goldblum and Isabella Rossellini, and The Neverhood. She has worked as a freelance writer and producer, developing scripts and stories, including Miss Whoopass, an original animated series, and Dancing Between Courses, a one-act play.
Tragos is currently writing a book and developing both narrative and documentary projects through her production company, Dinky Pictures, named after her father. She is also the founder and president of Orphans of War Foundation, whose on-going purpose is to increase awareness and understanding of the impact of the Vietnam War on those who lost a parent there. Tragos holds a BA in English from Northwestern University and an MFA with honors in Cinema/Television from the University of Southern California. |
