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Opening
on 21 October 2005 was The Work and The Glory: American Zion. Directed
by Sundance Film Festival founder Sterling Van Wagenan, American Zion
stars Jonathan Scarfe (“Into the West” “The L-Word”) and Eric
Johnson (“Legends of the Fall” “Smallville”) as the film’s
hero Joseph Smith and anti-hero Joshua Steed.
In November of 1833, the state of Missouri turned a blind eye as hundreds of its peaceful inhabitants were hunted down and driven from their homes in the dead of night. Against this impending strife, a young man with a divine vision leads a people against the aggression of an anti-hero with a vulnerable past. The Work and The Glory: American Zion sets the story of the fictional Steed family against the historically factual backdrop of the Mormon people’s move into the West. Divided by their diverse reactions to a nascent ideology, the Steeds struggle to hold together as the strength of their convictions and their filial bonds are tested. The stirring narrative of the faith that led a persecuted people to Missouri and beyond is one of the most poignant untold tales of American history. It is the account of a valiant struggle to exercise the rights promised by a fledgling nation. “The Work and the Glory: American Zion” unearths the story of the passion behind the movement which eventually launched the largest American migration and the colonization of the West: the vision of a promised land in America.
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