Moline Filmmakers Will Have Documentary on New Streaming Service
“Sheltering in place” takes on new meaning with a brand-new streaming service, tailored to fans of architecture and building design.
“The Barn Raisers” tells the story of how “country cathedrals” were built across the Midwest.
Online streaming rights to “The Barn Raisers,” an award-winning documentary produced by Kelly and Tammy Rundle of Moline-based Fourth Wall Films, have been acquired by Australian actor-producer and entrepreneur Dustin Clare for Shelter, a new digital platform for architecture enthusiasts. The channel targets a global audience and streams films, TV shows, and its own original works.
“The reality of lockdown has made us re-examine our connection to home, our immediate environment, and the world around us,” Clare recently said in a statement. “Through Shelter, we invite viewers to explore, be inspired, be entertained and engrossed, and most of all, be engaged with the world of architecture, design, lifestyle and outdoor living.”
Architectural Digest wrote in early August that the new platform has a curated catalogue of shows and movies intended for design fans. Shelter is the first streaming service solely dedicated to all things architecture and design.
In Australia’s Film Ink, Clare said of the exploding streaming landscape: “Where you can compete is in the very specific, very niche market by curating high quality content. What are audiences not getting access to? How can you curate for those audiences?
“This will be the next wave of streaming I believe, and it will be ultra specific and niche,” he said. “I think it’s an exciting time to be a part of the media landscape. This will undoubtedly increase production, and more independent production in the sector.”
Clare, 38, is best known for his role as Gannicus in the “Spartacus” series, the “Wolf Creek” TV series and films including “Pacific Rim:
Australian actor Dustin Clare launched the Shelter streaming service.
Uprising.” He is a partner in Fighting Chance Films, an independent production and distribution company based in northern New South Wales.
“We were excited to receive Mr. Clare’s inquiry regarding The Barn Raisers for inclusion in their streaming catalogue,” said producer/director Kelly Rundle. “Viewers around the globe will soon have a chance to see our labor of love, and to hear America’s unique and important vintage barn story.”
“The Barn Raisers” (2017) tells the true 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.”
Moline-based filmmakers Tammy and Kelly Rundle.
Barns were constructed by farmer-craftsmen, professional builders like Wisconsin round barn builder Alga (Algie) Shivers — a black carpenter who traveled from job to job, and even professional architects like Frank Lloyd Wright. “The Barn Raisers” paints a cinematic portrait of barns and builders, and the film reminds us that these remnants from America’s rural past are still here to be interpreted and experienced.
Kelly Rundle said that the Shelter service will offer a first for Fourth Wall – a market to international viewers.
“Shelter has their own built-in and growing audience,” he said. “As per Dustin, his acquisition team found and previewed ‘The Barn Raisers’ on our Fourth Wall Films Vimeo on Demand channel.
“The architecture angle has attracted a different audience for the film from the beginning,” Kelly said. “That approach led to the Newport Beach International Film Festival Official Selection by Invitation (Art & Architecture Sidebar), and online articles in Curbed, Bloomberg, and the L.A. Times.”
“The Barn Raisers” was also screened for passengers on a cruise ship and a bus, so the film has a unique appeal to the “moving conveyance” market, Kelly joked.
“Country School” free screening planned Nov. 22
The Rundles spent two years visiting over 100 one-room schools throughout the Midwest for their award-winning “Country School: One
The home page of shelter.stream
Room – One Nation.” The 2010 documentary will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a special free virtual screening on Sunday, Nov. 22 at 3 p.m. (CST) via the Fourth Wall Films Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Fourth-Wall-Films-173844695995934. A live Q&A with the filmmakers will follow the screening.
“We have so much to celebrate these ten years since Country School was first released,” said producer Tammy Rundle. “We received our first Mid-America Emmy nomination for Country School; it has screened in film festivals and other special events across the country, it has aired on PBS stations, and it was released nationally on DVD.”
A 1915 classroom featured in “Country School: One Room — One Nation.”
“The film is as much a tribute to the teaching profession as it is an homage to rural schools,” said director Kelly Rundle. “One woman or man teaching all eight grades in a single room is the ultimate example of multi-tasking.”
Over 80 hours of interviews, vistas, and historic sites shot in all four seasons in Iowa, Kansas, and Wisconsin were distilled down to a feature-length film that tells the dramatic true story of the life, death, and rebirth of one-room schools in the Upper Midwest.
“They did what they were supposed to do,” said historian Dorothy Schwieder. “There was a time when they met the needs of society. There was also a time when they ceased to meet the needs of society.”
The DVD cover for “Country School.”
Along with nostalgia, the Rundles’ journey revealed a few surprises: guns in school, bullying, lunch-stealing ponies, severe weather stories, a country school designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and the passion former students, teachers, and preservationists have for these sometimes forgotten and neglected little schools that still dot the rural landscape.
Country School also examines how one-room schools Americanized European and Eastern European immigrants during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
“One-room schools are a page in American history that is turning, and perhaps in another generation or two, there will be no one left to tell the story,” said writer Bill Samuelson.
Country School: One Room – One Nation was funded in part by the Wisconsin Humanities Council, Humanities Iowa, the Kansas Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Silos and Smokestacks National Heritage Area.
For more on Fourth Wall, visit fourthwallfilms.com.
