The award-winning documentary Good Earth: Awakening the Silent City, produced by Kelly and Tammy Rundle of Fourth Wall Films, has received a Mid-America Emmy® nomination. This is the Rundles' fourth Regional Emmy® nomination. The film is an official selection at the 11th Annual Iowa Independent Film Festival and will screen August 24-25 in Clear Lake and Mason City, Iowa. For festival details/tickets visit https://www.iifilmfestival.org/.
The Moline, Illinois-based independent production company successfully competed with 42 proposals by 36 other media production companies nationwide to win a contract to produce "Good Earth" for the visitors center at South Dakota's newest State Park, Good Earth at Blood Run. The film can be seen at the Visitors Center daily during operational hours.
Good Earth: Awakening the Silent City tells the fascinating and forgotten story of the Blood Run National Historic Landmark as told by a Native American grandfather to his grandchildren. Produced in 4K, the documentary combines vivid present-day views of the park's scenic vistas and wildlife with dramatic historical reenactments portraying daily life in the year 1650.
The Good Earth site in Iowa and South Dakota was occupied between 1500 and 1725 by ancestors of the present-day Omaha, Ponca, Ioway and Otoe-Missouria tribes, making it one of the oldest long-term habitation sites in the United States. At its peak around 1650, the site was home to 6,000-10,000 residents--more than Boston (2,000) and New York (New Amsterdam-1,000) in that same year--making It the largest city in what is now the United States.
Good Earth was an important Native trading center for pipestone, bison hides and culture. The once-vibrant city featured hundreds of lodges, earthen mounds, and a serpent-shaped effigy mound an eighth of a mile long.
Good Earth: Awakening the Silent City will screen at the Iowa Independent Film Festival on:
*Friday, August 24th at 4:03PM at the Clear Lake Arts Center, 17 S. 4th Street, Clear Lake, IA
*Friday, August 24 at 4PM at the Mason City Community Theatre, 215 S. Delaware Ave., Mason City
*Saturday, and August 25 at 6PM at the Main Event, 112 2nd Street SE, Mason City.
The documentary project drew on talent from the the Quad Cities including Kimberly Kurtenbach (assistant director/casting), Lora Adams (assistant directing/assistant wardrobe), Chris Ryder (cinematography/assistant editor), Michael Kopriva (production assistant), Sara Wegener (hair/make-up) and local cast Louis Hare, Regina Tsosie, David Casas, Veronica Tremaine. Additional Iowa-based talent included Kevin Railsback (nature/wildlife director of photography), Melinda Carriker (wardrobe supervisor/set and props), Jon Van Allen (gaffer), and computer animation by Grasshorse Studios. South Dakota talent included Angelique Verver (hair/make-up artist) and Mike He Crow (flint-knapper/cultural props). Artist Reuben Ironhorse-Kent from White Cloud, Kansas created pottery for the film, consulted actors on the craft and also appears in the film.
Tribal Historic Preservation Officers, Tribal representatives and consultants from five Native American Nations to part in the project, including:
Lance Foster (Iowa Tribe of Kansas & Nebraska), Randy Teboe and Shannon Wright (Ponca Tribe of Nebraska), Marisa Miakonda Cummings and Thomas Parker (Omaha Tribe of Nebraska),
Elsie Whitehorn (Otoe-Missouria Tribe), Eagle McClellan (Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma).
The Rundles are the producers of the award-winning Lost Nation: The Ioway series, The Barn Raisers,Movie Star: The Secret Lives of Jean Seberg (with McMarr, Ltd.), Villisca: Living with a Mystery; the Emmy® nominated Country School: One Room - One Nation, River to River: Iowa's Forgotten Highway 6, and Letters Home to Hero Street (with WQPT); and the soon-to-be released docudrama Sons & Daughters of Thunder.
View the teaser!