Documentary filmmakers Kelly and Tammy Rundle of Moline-based Fourth Wall Films were awarded grants from the Moline Foundation and the Illinois Humanities Council to fund a portion of the post-production work on A World Away From Hero Street, the third installment in their Hero Street historical documentary film series. Their docudrama Sons & Daughters of Thunder was awarded a grant by the Illinois Arts Council to fund portions of the editing and finishing phase of the project.
"We are very grateful to the Moline Foundation and the Illinois Humanities Council for the grants awarded to A World Away from Hero Street,” said producer Tammy Rundle. “We also extend our gratitude to LULAC Iowa, the City of Silvis, Bob Ontiveros and Marc Wilson, who generously provided a cash match for the Humanities grant.”
A World Away From Hero Street will tell the story of William Sandoval. Born in a boxcar into an impoverished family of twelve, he joined the Army after Pearl Harbor was attacked and became a paratrooper. He survived several battles over the next two years, but was killed at age 21 in October 1944 following his involvement in what is still the largest air assault in history, the British-led Operation Market Garden. This battle was the basis for the Hollywood film “A Bridge Too Far.” The documentary will combine interviews with Sandoval family members, friends, and historians, with archival photos, letters and documents. The film will also feature an on-camera interview with military historian John C. McManus, the author of "September Hope: The American Side of a Bridge Too Far."
"A World Away From Hero Street is not a story of dates that battles were fought, or the number of tons of bombs dropped, it is a human story,” said Director Kelly Rundle. “The national success of Letters Home to Hero Street has proven that the Hero Street story has a universal appeal and interest."
Letters Home to Hero Street was co-produced with WQPT-PBS and received an Emmy® nomination in 2015. The film is also featured on the national PBS Learning Media website along with associated lesson plans for teachers.
A World Away previously received a grant from the Regional Development Authority.
A special Humanities Iowa sneak preview of Riding the Rails to Hero Street, the first film in the series is slated for May 2019. A World Away From Hero Street will premiere in November 2019 near Veterans Day.
Director Kelly Rundle was also awarded an Individual Artist Support Grant from the Illinois Arts Council to commission creative visual and sound work for the editing and finishing stage of Fourth Wall Films’ docudrama Sons & Daughters of Thunder. Chris Ryder of Autumn Leaf Productions will perform the work. Ryder contributed similar work for Fourth Wall Films for Letters Home to Hero Street and Good Earth: Awakening the Silent City. Thunder will premiere at the Putnam Museum’s Giant Screen on Saturday, March 9 at 6:30 p.m.
Sons & Daughters of Thunder is based on a play by Earlene Hawley and Curtis Heeter and tells the true story of the 1834 Lane Seminary Debates. Organized by Theodore Weld, one of the architects of the abolitionist movement, the shocking oratory sparked intense controversy and awakened a young Harriet Beecher (Stowe) to the horrors of slavery. Beecher-Stowe went on to pen “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” The novel changed American public opinion in favor of abolition.
Thunder was filmed at historic sites in Rock Island, Sterling and Andover, Illinois, and in Cincinnati Ohio. The film stars Thomas Alan Taylor (Weld), Jessica Taylor (Beecher), Janos Horvath (Harriet’s father, Lyman Beecher) and Kimberly Kurtenbach (Katharine Beecher).
Thunder previously received a grant from Quad City Arts Dollars for additional dialog recordings with actors.
Fourth Wall Films is an award-winning, Regional-Emmy nominated independent media production company formerly located in Los Angeles, and now based in Moline, Illinois.
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