Mark Hogancamp drifted between odd jobs—driver, bartender—until that day in April 2000 when he was attacked, beaten, and left for dead outside a bar by five men who claimed they had mistaken him for a transvestite. After nine days in a coma and nearly two months in the hospital, he emerged weakened by irreversible brain injuries that left him partially amnesic. With no financial resources, he could not undergo therapy. Over time, he built himself a new narrative by creating in his garden an imaginary town, Marwencol, a Belgian World War II village at a 1/6 scale, in which he stages dolls—Barbie-like figures—in his own likeness, at war against Nazis, evil and sadistic women, but also representations of his own attackers. He describes himself as a filmmaker.