Ontario's Stratford Perth Museum will showcase The Barn Raisers, an award-winning documentary by Mid-America Emmy® nominated filmmakers Kelly and Tammy Rundle of Fourth Wall Films. The film will screen on Friday, November 29th at 7:00 p.m. during a free public event sponsored by Ontario Barn Preservation, VELD architect, and Stratford Perth Museum. The Museum is located at 4275 Huron Road, Stratford, Ontario. A Q&A with Ontario Barn Preservation's board of directors will follow the film presentation.
“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, Quad City Times, gave The Barn Raisers four-out-of-four stars.
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 Stratford Perth Museum is located at 4275 Huron St, Stratford, Onatario, Canada. Attendees are invited for socializing, film, art, architecture, and the love of barns. The event is free. Donations to Ontario Barn Preservation are greatly appreciated. For more information call 519-393-5311 or visit https://www.stratfordperthmuseum.ca/
The Barn Raisers was an Official Selection at the Newport Beach Film Festival, the Beloit International Film Festival, the Interrobang Film Festival, the Royal Starr Film Festival, the Sunback Film Festival, and an award-winner at the Iowa Independent Film Festival.
The Barn Raisers was funded in part by Silos and Smokestacks National Heritage Area, Wisconsin Humanities Council, Humanities Iowa, the Kansas Humanities Council, the Michigan Barn Preservation Network, the Ohio Humanities Council, the National Barn Alliance, 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 the organizations.
The Rundles are the producers of twelve award-winning documentaries including the Lost Nation: The Ioway 3-part series, and the Emmy® nominated Good Earth: Awakening the Silent City and Letters Home to Hero Street (co-produced with WQPT-PBS). Their new documentary Movie Star: The Secret Lives of Jean Seberg, co-produced with Emmy-nominated writer Garry McGee, will be released in early 2020.
To order Fourth Wall Films' award-winning The Barn Raisers on DVD, click HERE!