I’m very pleased to share this news release, which I’ve just received from our friend and colleague James Jordan:
Global Media Award Recognition for The Interpreter Foundation and RedBrick FilmWorks’ Historical Feature Film SIX DAYS IN AUGUST
Orem, Utah, Jun 6, 2025 /TIFNewswire/ — The Interpreter Foundation and their media partner RedBrick FilmWorks announced today that they are the winner of three Telly Awards for their theatrical feature film, Six Days in August.
The Telly Awards is a global award program that honors excellence in film, video and television across all media formats. They were established in 1979 and have evolved to recognize a wide range of content, including movies, documentaries, commercials, and social media.
The movie Six Days in August was awarded two Silver Tellys: one for Narrative Film, and another for Historical Film. The movie was also awarded a People’s Choice Bronze Telly. Out of thousands of entries, Six Days in August was one of only six recipients of the Silver Telly for Narrative Film.
This is the second Interpreter Foundation film production that has won a Telly Award. Their previous feature film, Witnesses,won a Bronze Telly in 2021.
“We are honored to be recognized by the Telly Awards for excellence in motion picture production,” said Russell Richins, one of the producers of Six Days in August. “We strongly believe that the stories of the Restored Church can—and should—be told by utilizing the highest levels of talent in all aspects of filmmaking. These awards are a testament to the skills and dedicated efforts of our actors and film crew.”
Six Days in August tells the dramatic true story of a youthful Brigham Young and the leadership succession crisis of 1844 following the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith. The title of the movie refers to the pivotal period in August of 1844 when Sidney Rigdon and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, led by Brigham Young, stated their respective claims for leadership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Saints had never before experienced the death of a Church President; this was uncharted territory. The film introduces a young, much lesser-known Brigham Young, with exceptional spiritual gifts, as well as a history of hard work, fortitude, sacrifice, and service that uniquely prepared him to lead at that exact time.
The Interpreter Foundation is a nonprofit educational organization focused on supporting The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through scholarship, with particular emphasis on the scriptures of the Church, as well as early Latter-day Saint history, and related subjects. In concert with RedBrick, the Foundation continues to produce media content, including their upcoming series Becoming Brigham.
RedBrick FilmWorks is a production company with decades of experience in all aspects of media production, including feature films, docudramas, documentaries, web series, and commercials.
Six Days in August can be seen on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Google Play Movies & TV, YouTube, Fandango at Home, and other streaming sites. Blu-ray/DVDs can be purchased at Deseret Book and online at Amazon.com.
As we often do, my wife and I enjoyed dinner with a group of our friends last night — well, with her friends, anyway; given my notorious defects of both character and personality, it’s scarcely plausible for me to claim friends! — at the Joy Luck Restaurant in Sandy and then we took in a production of Finding Neverland at the nearby Hale Centre Theatre. Somehow, even in my Disneyland-going and Disney-movie attending childhood, I was never especially smitten with Peter Pan — unlike my wife, who says that she had a very young crush on Peter. That blind spot limits my potential for appreciating Finding Neverland just a little bit, and I don’t find the play’s music especially memorable. But the performance was superb, and they used the remarkable resources of the theater extremely well. We enjoyed it very much.
Yes, I’m well aware of the widespread and powerful — but, thus far, completely unexpressed — desire for me to say something about the riots in Los Angeles, my native town (more or less). So, although I won’t compromise my desire to avoid partisan politics in this blog, I’ll make two brief comments:
- Scenes of demonstrators waving Mexican flags (and, at least once or twice that I’ve seen, placards referring to the Los Angeles area as “stolen land”) don’t exactly refute the allegation that these riots constitute an “insurgency.” (See “Illegals Help Film Republican Presidential Campaign Commercial.”)
- I’m very far from a fan of either of them, but the suggestion that Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass should be arrested is worse than ridiculous; it’s redolent of a Third World dictatorship. (When I was in Iran many years ago for an academic conference, the reformist and relatively moderate mayor of Tehran was languishing in prison, having (as everybody there seemed to understand) been framed for supposed “corruption,” convicted, and incarcerated by hardliners as a way of jabbing a thumb in the eye of the then-Iranian president, his friend and ally Mohammed Khatami, who was likewise a reformist and relatively moderate — and whom, for whatever it’s worth, I once had the opportunity to meet.)
And — why not? — while I’m already dangerously loitering in this politically-adjacent space, I’ll mention that I saw an assertion today that 700,000 Americans were killed by the COVID vaccines. So I want to endorse that claim. In fact, I think it’s probably a gross underestimate: At least 75,000 people died on my residential neighborhood block alone. The change might actually be difficult to see, but our numbers at sacrament meeting may perhaps have declined somewhat, and I understand that the nearby state of Colorado has entirely ceased to exist.
I think that I’ll close by irrelevantly sharing a pair of poems by the largely forgotten American writer of light verse Arthur Guiterman (1871-1943). In order to fully appreciate the first of them, you need to recall that billiard balls were once made from actual ivory that had been taken either from elephant tusks or, even, from the tusks of ancient mastodons.
“On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness”
The tusks which clashed in mighty brawls
Of mastodons, are billiard balls.The sword of Charlemagne the Just
Is Ferric Oxide, known as rust.The grizzly bear, whose potent hug
Was feared by all, is now a rug.Great Caesar’s bust is on the shelf,And I don’t feel so well myself.
The second, I think, is on modern “progress” and needs no explanation:
First dentistry was painless.
Then bicycles were chainless,
Carriages were horseless,
And many laws enforceless.
Next cookery was fireless,
Telegraphy was wireless,
Cigars were nicotineless,
And coffee caffeineless.
Soon oranges were seedless,
The putting green was weedless,
The college boy was hatless,
The proper diet fatless.
New motor roads are dustless,
The latest steel is rustless,
Our tennis courts are sodless,
Our new religion–godless.
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