Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – A film titled “Unsinkable Freedom” is now playing at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (ALPLM). The film portrays Robert Smalls, a former slave who goes on a vigorous journey to escape to freedom in the north.
Smalls commandeered the boat that he was working on as a slave, saving himself and 15 other slaves that were on board. Once free, Small became a U.S. Congressman. Opened a school, started a newspaper, and even bought his former enslavers home.
Lance Tawzer, Director of Exhibits and Shows for the ALPLM, spoke on the WTAX Morning Newswatch about the film, what started the idea, and how it was made possible.
“It was really the first time his story really came into our universe but once we’d learned about it, I thought ‘Oh my gosh how come we don’t know this story already?” Said Tawzer.
The original story started as a fifteen-minute play with a one-man actor. However, one day, Tawzer had actually run into someone who formerly worked in Hollywood.
“The way the Movie came together, was that we came across this extremely talented person. He’s from Petersburg but he was working in Hollywood and working on movies like Star Wars Clone Wars, Sonic the Hedgehog, He worked on the First Peter Jackson King Kong movie. So, he’s got these legitimate Hollywood credentials, but he moved back to Petersburg during Covid. I literally ran into him, we crossed paths and he told me about some of the types of things that he does. We had this conversation about how people are utilizing video game, world generation software to create animated features, to tell stories.” Said Tawzer.
The encouragement to make the film came from Tawzer’s new-found and former Hollywood friend.
“He said we can make a feature, and we can make it affordably. Because the museum has a lot of talented people, like Reggie, and like the people that create some of our music and do stuff. We can do it collaboratively, we set apart doing this project, I mean it took about a year from when we first started talking until it premiered, but it was just a real unique approach to storytelling.” Stated Tawzer.
The 11-minute short film started playing on February 27 of this year at the ALPLM. Showings will be every 15 minutes throughout the museums open hours for the next three months.
