“We have art in order to not die of the truth.” -Friedrich Nietzsche

Dang Thai Son and Thai Thi Lien - living the power of music.

Story4 is raising funds for a feature-length documentary.

The film is about renowned concert pianist Dang Thai Son and his mother, Thai Thi Lien (Madame Lien), and their passion for music that transcended all odds.

Evacuated from Hanoi during much of the Vietnam War, Madame Lien and Son started his prodigious rise from primitive and oppressive conditions.

“The Cannon and the Flower” will bring their story to American audiences for the first time.

Estimated timeline for distribution is 2015, the 40^th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. The documentary will combine interviews with Dang Thai Son and Madame Lien, their music, historic footage and 3D animations.

The Cannon and the Flower site:

http://thecannonandflowermovie.com/

Donate:

http://thecannonandflowermovie.com/?page_id=171

John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford University:

Story4′s short video describing the transformative nature of the Knight Fellowship program.

http://knight.stanford.edu/

Sowing Change 2010 for The Women’s Foundation of California:

Story4′s three short documentaries released on Cesar Chavez’ birthday show the progress and issues facing women leaders and their organizations working for improving the health and economic security of Central Valley residents: http://bit.ly/xwWm4s

Innovative Interactivity (II) ( http://www.innovativeinteractivity.com/2010/08/19/company-spotlight-story4/ … for those who are curious about the ever-evolving trends of interactive multimedia, who’s doing it best and the tricks to staying on top.)  features a Q&A on Story4 to kick off a weekly feature on companies working in the interactive multimedia space.

The Story4 and the Boroumand Foundation’s documentary, Interrupted Lives,  will be featured in a traveling exhibit hosted at universities in the US this fall, including Georgetown and Yale. The Interrupted Lives exhibit will also travel to Harvard, Berkeley, and Oxford universities in the spring of 2011.
For more information about the Interrupted Lives film and exhibit, or if your university would like to host this exhibit, please contact ABF at: omid@abfiran.org or visit their Facebook Page:http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid…

Almost every Saturday morning for the past 30 years, a group of volunteers has gathered in an airplane hangar to painstakingly build a flying replica of the 1903 Wright Flyer that first took man aloft for powered flight.
Story4 and the Wright Flyer Project present “Dreams of Flight” a 10-minute documentary on the project’s achievements and the desire to build an endowment for a permanent educational exhibit at historic FlaBob Ariport in Riverside, Calif.
The film premiered June 20 at an open house at the project’s new home on the flight line at FlaBob.
The Wright Flyer Project site: http://www.wrightflyer.org/

Story4 is in preproduction with Asian Americans for Community Involvement (AACI) to do a short documentary, “Silicon Valley Asian American Voices.” The documentary will highlight the historical and current contributions Asian American immigrants have made, identify cultural barriers to the success of immigrants and stimulate discussions of policy across Silicon Valley.

Story4 is in post production of a web documentary, “Lives Interrupted,” for the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation (ABF) to illuminate stories of the repression and interruption of the lives of students under the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The documentary will examine documented human rights case histories of students imprisoned, tortured or executed for voicing religious or political dissent  since the 1979 revolution.

Health care reform is a hot topic, and Story4 just completed a web documentary for the Health Improvement Partnership of Santa Cruz County (HIP). The documentary highlights the work of the  Safety Net Clinic Coalition in providing high quality, low-cost medical and dental care to the county’s residents. The documentary will be used in public forums and on the HIP and clinic web sites to raise awareness of the role of the clinics in the health of the community. The video was funded by the California Health Care Foundation and the California Endowment.

Story4′s short documentary for Out & Equal Workplace Advocates screened in October at the annual Workplace Summit, before 2,300 attendees. Out & Equal is a San Francisco-based nonprofit that works for workplace equality issues for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, as employees, customers and communities.