Brooklyn becomes a battlefield in Wilfred La Salle’s newest film, ‘The Veteran’ • Brooklyn Paper

For independent filmmaker Wilfred La Salle, Brooklyn is more than a backdrop — it’s the beating heart of his films. 

His newest feature, “The Veteran,” premieres Memorial Day on FOX Soul, tackling issues facing returning service members through a New York lens. Shot across Brooklyn, from homes in Crown Heights to the abandoned military structures of Floyd Bennet Field and Fort Tilden, the independent drama transforms familiar borough landscapes into war zones, shelters and city streets. 

La Salle’s path to filmmaking has been anything but traditional.

“I began my career when I was 21 — I was a New York City NYPD school safety agent. Before that, I was an auxiliary police officer. So it’s always been in my blood,” he said. “My father was also a police officer. And then I became a New York City correction officer.”

La Salle told Brooklyn Paper he chooses to mainly shoot all of his films in Brooklyn. “The Veteran” features locations in Crown Heights, Fort Tilden and Floyd Bennet Field. Photo courtesy of Wilfred La Salle

Though filmmaking had always interested him, La Salle said he spent years believing it was unrealistic.

“I always felt like I needed someone else’s permission to pursue it,” he said. “I grew up around civil servants. My family, we were very into, like, ‘Get your pension, get your union job. Make sure you have something to fall back on.’”

That changed in 2019, when he abruptly decided to invest in himself.

“I told my wife, at the time she was my girlfriend, I said, ‘Hey, I’m gonna make films,’” he recalled. “And I bought like ten thousand dollars worth of camera equipment.”

La Salle has directed seven films in seven years.Photo courtesy of Wilfred La Salle

Since then, La Salle has independently produced a feature film every year — all self-funded.

“Every year since then, I produced a film on a zero dollar budget,” he said. “I’m the budget. There’s no sponsors. There’s no investors.”

That determination helped put him on the map with his 2024 film, “The Security Guard” a Brooklyn-set thriller centered around a mass school shooting. The project drove media attention and distribution deals while cementing his reputation for socially conscious storytelling.

“I’m basically a social advocacy filmmaker who’s highlighting issues that seem to fall on deaf ears,” he added. 

“The Veteran” follows Jose Torres (Yanko Valentin-Perez), a U.S. Marine who returns from Iraq with injuries that lead to opioid addiction and homelessness. The lead actor portraying Torres is himself a military veteran.

In “The Veteran,” the main character was a veteran off-screen.Photo courtesy of Wilfred La Salle

“The actual actor who plays Jose is actually a U.S. Army veteran who served in Iraq,” La Salle said. “He had a lot of valuable insight into what goes on with the VA and the benefits that they’re denied and affordable housing.”

La Salle said “The Veteran” aims to confront the realities many veterans face after returning home.

“It goes from a simple back injury — one becomes two, two becomes three — and then next thing you know, you’re addicted to Vicodin, you’re addicted to Oxy,” he said. “To me, it’s a national epidemic.”

While the story deals with national issues, Brooklyn remained central to the production. La Salle said his familiarity with the borough and its military sites made it ideal for recreating scenes of Iraq.

“Working with the NYPD, we used to train in Floyd Bennett Field,” he said. “So I was like, ‘You know what? They have a lot of weird, decrepit buildings. We can kind of make it look like Iraq.’ And we literally made Brooklyn look like Iraq.”

Many of the war sequences were filmed guerrilla-style without permits, often drawing attention from passersby and law enforcement.
“The Veteran” will premiere on Memorial Day on FOX Soul.

“We had some of the cops called on us because they were like, ‘There’s some guys dressed as Taliban guys and fake guns,’” he said with a laugh. “But the guy was nice enough. I told him, ‘Look, I used to be on the job.’”

Another memorable moment came during filming of scenes in which Jose experiences homelessness in Times Square. According to La Salle, bystanders believed the production was exploiting a real unhoused veteran.

“They thought I was filming a homeless person,” he said. “I said, ‘Listen, I’m glad you’re outraged. This is exactly what we wanted to do. The villain in this film is society.’”

The emotional response, he said, confirmed “The Veteran” was accomplishing its goal.

“What we wanted to show was that this person that you see sitting here could be somebody who fought for this country,” he said.

Despite working without a traditional production crew, La Salle writes, directs, shoots and produces his films himself. He credits that DIY spirit as part of what defines his work.

“We’re filming guerrilla style,” he said. “It’s kind of like we’re just taking massive risks. And to me, that’s where the value is.”
La Salle said his films have no budget and are funded entirely by him.Photo courtesy of Wilfred La Salle

Now based in Westchester County, La Salle still considers Brooklyn a creative home.

“I love the aesthetic, I love the culture, I love the people, I love the atmosphere,” he said. “It’s such a great and unique place to film.”

His next project, “Lucy,” will focus on autism awareness and begin filming this summer. But for now, La Salle hopes audiences tune into “The Veteran” this Memorial Day and recognize the stories too often overlooked.

“The film represents every service man and woman,” he said. “I’m a filmmaker who shoots in New York and tries to highlight all these issues that no one seems to want to talk about.”