Featured in THE BARN RAISERS, the Stromeyer Barn in Jackson County, Iowa.
The Barn Raisers is an Official Selection at the Interrobang Film Festival and will screen Saturday, June 24 at 3:00 p.m. at the Des Moines Central Library, 1000 Grand Avenue, Des Moines, Iowa. Festival information is available at desmoinesartsfestival.org/interrobangfilmfestival/.
The crowd-pleasing documentary by Mid-America Emmy® nominated filmmakers Kelly and Tammy Rundle of Fourth Wall Films tells the story of Midwestern barns by examining them through the lens of architecture. The film explores what building methods, barn styles, and materials tell us about the people who built them, the life they lived, and the role these “country cathedrals” played in the settling and building of the Nation.
Barns were constructed by farmer-craftsmen, professional builders who traveled from job to job and even architects like Frank Lloyd Wright. The Barn Raisers paints a cinematic portrait of barns and builders, an important way of life that has been largely forgotten, and the film reminds us that these remnants from America’s rural past are still here to be interpreted and experienced.
Ackley Heritage Center Barn, a Silos and Smokestacks National Heritage Area partner site.
The Barn Raisers was filmed in Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. It was recently an Official Selection at California's Newport Beach Film Festival, and the Doc Sunback Film Festival in Mulvane, Kansas.
A number of Iowa barns are featured in the documentary including Iowa’s oldest barn located in St. Donatus; the barn on the C.G. Good Farm in Ogden where the famous Belgian Stallion Farceur is buried; the Flynn barn at Living History Farms; architect/builder Benton Steele’s last remaining round barn in Iowa, and many others.
Iowa scholars were interviewed for the film including, Leo Landis of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and Marlin Ingalls of the Iowa Office of the State Archaeologist.
The Barn Raisers was partially funded by grants from Humanities Iowa, Silos and Smokestacks National Heritage Area, the Kansas Humanities Council, the Ohio Humanities Council, the Wisconsin Humanities Council, the Michigan Barn Preservation Network, the National Barn Alliance/Russ & LuAnn Mawby, the Moline Foundation, and the Community Foundation of Jackson County. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this documentary film and program do not necessarily reflect those of these organizations.
The Interrobang Film Festival runs June 23-25, 2017 and all film festival selections will screen at the Des Moines Central Library.
The Rundles are the producers of the regional Emmy® nominated historical documentaries Country School: One Room – One Nation, River to River: Iowa’s Forgotten Highway 6, and Letters Home to Hero Street (co-produced with WQPT-PBS).
To pre-order The Barn Raisers DVD, visit http://fourthwallfilms.com/dvds.htm. The DVD will ship early July.