KELLY RUNDLE - Producer, Writer, Director
The producer-director-writer of The Barn Raisers is Emmy® nominated documentary filmmaker Kelly Rundle. He has been producing, directing and editing documentaries and other media projects for 25 years. Kelly was born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin and grew up in East Moline, Illinois, one of the Quad Cities. He graduated with honors from Park University in Kansas City. Later he worked in the International Theatrical Division of Sony Pictures Entertainment and in advertising for Deutsch LA. Kelly, along with wife Tammy, formed their independent production company Fourth Wall Films while living in Los Angeles and they are now based in Moline, Illinois. Kelly and Tammy are the recipients of numerous humanities awards, Telly awards, film festival awards, and film festival Official Selections. Kelly's paternal and maternal grandparents were Wisconsin dairy farmers, and his great grandfather was a farmer/craftsman who built his own barn and home near New Auburn, Wisconsin.
TAMMY RUNDLE - Producer, Writer
The producer-writer of The Barn Raisers is Emmy® nominated documentary filmmaker Tammy Rundle. She has been producing and writing documentaries and other media projects for over 20 years. Tammy is a Waterloo, Iowa native and she graduated with honors from Park University in Kansas City, Missouri with a degree in English: emphasis in writing. She worked in advertising for Los Angeles Magazine and later for Sierra Investment Management. She and her husband, Kelly, lived in Los Angeles, California for 18 years. They recently relocated their independent production company Fourth Wall Films to the Quad Cities area where they continue to focus their cameras on Midwestern history stories.
TOGETHER THE RUNDLES are the producers of the regional Emmy® nominated historical documentary Country School: One Room – One Nation, and the award-winning and critically-acclaimed documentary films Lost Nation: The Ioway and Villisca: Living with a Mystery.
Villisca: Living with a Mystery spent 15 months in theaters in more than 60 cities, was an official selection at several film festivals and won the Best Documentary award at the 2006 CRI Film Festival. It qualified for the 2005 Academy Award® competition in the Documentary Feature Film category. The documentary has enjoyed a national DVD release and to continues to air periodically on Midwestern PBS stations.
Lost Nation: The Ioway garnered several film festival awards including Best Documentary at the International Cherokee Film Festival. It was an Official Selection in the Archaeology Channel’s International Film Festival and it won a 2008 Telly Award®. Since its premiere in 2007, the film has screened in over 70 cities, was released nationally on DVD and was broadcast on PBS stations throughout the Midwest.
Country School: One Room - One Nation received a 2012 Regional Emmy® nomination in the Historical Documentary category. The film won a 2012 Telly Award® and was an Official Selection and award-winner at several film festivals. It received special awards of excellence from Silos & Smokestacks National Heritage Area and the Country School Association of America. Country School was released nationally on DVD in 2011 and broadcast on Midwestern PBS stations in 2012.
The award-winning sequels Lost Nation: The Ioway 2&3 were completed in 2013. The Rundles also partnered with Emmy® nominated documentary filmmaker Garry McGee to produce and premiere a Hollywood biography entitled Movie Star: The Secret Lives of Jean Seberg. Seberg was born in Marshalltown, Iowa and went on to become an international film star, national civil rights activist and fashion icon.
The Rundles are also in production on the historical documentary feature film River to River: Iowa's Forgotten Highway 6 to be released in late 2014, and the docudrama Sons & Daughters of Thunder. Thunder is based on the award-winning play by Earlene Hawley and Curtis Heeter is currently in production and slated for release in 2015.