S.F. Jones limestone barn located at Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Strong City, Kansas.
Kelly and Tammy Rundle's documentary The Barn Raisers will be showcased at the Twilight Theatre, 200 S. Main St., Greensburg, Kansas as part of the “Big Kansas Road Trip” celebration. The award-winning film will screen free to the public on Saturday, May 5 at 10:30 a.m. Q&A will follow with barn historian and preservationist Sally Hatcher, who appears in the documentary. The movie event is sponsored by the Kansas Barn Alliance and the Twilight Theatre.
Organized by the Kansas Sampler Foundation, the “Big Kansas Road Trip” encourages people to explore the counties of Kiowa, Comanche and Barber May 3-6.
“Participants will have the opportunity to eat in the cafes, shop in the stores, tour the attractions drive the scenic roads, and see these communities as they are—with the red carpet rolled out,” states the Foundation’s website at www.kansassampler.org.
In addition to sponsoring the special showing of The Barn Raisers, the Kansas Barn Alliance will host an exhibit at the Fromme-Birney Round Barn, which will be open to the public for tours all four days of the celebration. Designated as one of the 8 Wonders of Kansas Architecture, the 1912 barn is located south of Mullinville. More details about activities the four-day event can be found at www.kansasbarnalliance.org.
A crowd-pleaser at film festivals, The Barn Raisers tells the story of barns in the Midwest 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. The Barn Raisers is a companion film to the Rundles’ Emmy® nominated historical documentary Country School: One Room – One Nation.
“How could we create something from practically nothing with just a handful of tools and no drawings? The answer is in the barns,” said Rudy Christian, a traditional timber framer and barn preservationist from Burbank, Ohio.
Barns were constructed by farmer-craftsmen, professional builders like Wisconsin round barn builder Alga Shivers 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.
“The Barn Raisers feels like a hymn to the solemn beauty and importance of these buildings,” wrote Entertainment Editor Jonathan Turner of the Dispatch-Argus.
Film critic Linda Cook of the Quad City Times gave The Barn Raisers four-out-of-four stars.
The Cooper Barn is the largest barn in Kansas, located at the Prairie Museum of Art and History in Colby, Kansas.
Numerous Kansas barns and barn experts appear in the film, as well as structures in four other Midwestern states.
The Barn Raisers won Best Documentary at the Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival, and the Judge’s Choice at the Iowa Independent Film Festival. It was an Official Selection at the Newport Beach Film Festival, Beloit International Film Festival, Interrobang Film Festival, the Royal Starr Film Festival, and the Doc Sunback Film Festival.
The Barn Raisers was partially funded by grants from the Kansas Humanities Council, Wisconsin Humanities Council, Humanities Iowa, Ohio Humanities Council, the Michigan Barn Preservation Network, the National Barn Alliance/Russ & LuAnn Mawby, Silos and Smokestacks National Heritage Area, the Moline Foundation, and the Community Foundation of Jackson County.
The Rundles are the producers of twelve award-winning documentaries including the Lost Nation: The Ioway 1, 2 & 3 series, and the Emmy® nominated River to River: Iowa’s Forgotten Highway 6, and Letters Home to Hero Street (co-produced with WQPT-PBS).
The Kansas Barn Alliance, Inc. is a Kansas not-for-profit organization dedicated to discovering, memorializing and preserving the story of rural Kansas, especially barns.
To order The Barn Raisers DVD, visit http://www.fourthwallfilms.com/dvds.htm.