Wednesday, November 02, 2005

WILMINGTON, N.C. - The Civil War documentary Confederate Goliath is being distributed nationally to public television stations and will have its North Carolina premiere on UNC-TV at 10 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 6. The film will air in different states at different times and will be broadcast as many times as each state likes for up to three years. It will also be available to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Confederate Goliath, produced by Edward Tyndall and UNCW Film Studies graduate Kenneth Price, chronicles the battles to capture Fort Fisher and close the port of Wilmington, NC during the American Civil War. Tyndall is the son of UNCW Vice Chancellor for Information Technology Systems Bob Tyndall.

The documentary is based on the award-winning book by author Rod Gragg and features interviews with leading Civil War historians, including Dr. Chris E. Fonvielle Jr., assistant professor of history at UNCW. The film combines archival photographs with narrative-style cinematography by M. Shawn Lewallen and Matt Arkins to tell this dramatic and engaging story.

Fort Fisher was the largest earthen fort in the Western Hemisphere at the time of the attacks. The campaigns to capture the fort boasted the heaviest naval bombardments seen during the Civil War. With the fall of Fort Fisher, the port of Wilmington, NC was effectively closed and the supply line to Robert E. Lee’s Army in Virginia was cut. Lee surrendered his army three months later and the American Civil War came to a close.

The film was created using an innovative production platform that generated paid internships in the areas of history, filmmaking and computer science for students at North Carolina universities. The University of North Carolina Wilmington served as the anchor university for the film’s educational outreach.

UNCW Film graduates including Roy Knauf, Reyadh Al-Banna, James "El-J" Harding, Alison Diviney and Bob Shrober worked on the project. Co-producer Edward Tyndall also produced film studies assistant Monkey Junction.

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Tyndall can be reached at 336-379-7450 for more information.