What is the film about?

The true story about a US intelligence officer in the Soviet Union, after he’s chased by the KGB, he comes across a painting that will change his perception of himself.

Julia’s grandfather lived a very crazy life as the captain of a diesel submarine in the Sea of Japan and a spy in the Soviet Union, her album “If I Dont Survive the Nuclear Winter” tells his life story and Water Lilies tells just one chapter of it.

Granddad never liked the word ‘spy’, he said it just wasn’t accurate to what he did. It was no secret why he was in the Soviet Union. Everyone knew he was gathering intel, taking photos, and sending it back to the States. It just couldn’t be acknowledged officially by the Americans or the Soviets. And vise versa, he knew the KGB was following him and bugging his phone calls. Everyone knew what everyone else what up to but no one could say it explicitly.

In a similar thread, Granddad, the Cold War Man as he’s called in the album, wonders in this song if he will be known as a great man. Will he live up to his father, the Pilot’s expectations? Will his children see him in the same greatness he saw his father? Will he be known as a Cold War Man? In the depths of a crazed painted basement studio, he finds solace in the serene chaos of the Water Lilies painting. He sees himself there.

The Water Lilies painting is a real painting he purchased in the USSR. Over the years, it became water damaged and Julia saved it from being thrown out. After she moved to the East Coast, animators Annika Lang and Abrielle Marsden saved the painting once more from being lost. It rested on their mantel for a year until Julia returned to California.