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ETV Presents Broadcast Premiere of "The Four Children of Tander Welch"

SC Film Starring Mackenzie Astin and Patty Duke to Air April 17 at 9 p.m.

For Immediate Release
April 1, 2008

Columbia, SC...On April 17 at 9 p.m., ETV will air the broadcast premiere of The Four Children of Tander Welch as part of the award-winning Southern Lens series.  The feature-length film stars Mackenzie Astin (Iron Will, episodes of Lost and My Name is Earl) along with his mother, the Academy Award winning actress, Patty Duke.

Shot in and around Columbia in late 2006 and early 2007, the film tells the story of William Dane (Astin), a hospice worker who has sacrificed greatly to care for his emotionally fragile mother (Duke).  To make ends meet, he takes a job for the eccentric Tander Welch (Nicholas Pryor), a terminally ill and once-acclaimed author who is not at all interested in end-of-life care.  Rather, he wants to end life on his own terms, and charges Dane with the task of fulfilling his final request:  Convincing his three estranged daughters to visit him one final time.

As Dane meets each woman to deliver the news of their father's impending death, he learns who Welch is and what he has done.  In a seemingly impossible battle to help this family reconnect, Dane is drawn into the fray not only through a sense of obligation, but also in an effort to save Welch.

The Four Children of Tander Welch is a collaboration by South Carolina artists, and was funded in part through the South Carolina Film Commission's Film Production Fund.  It was written and directed by ETV producer Ashlon Langley, who is also an adjunct scriptwriting professor at USC. Matthew Sefick produced the film, which includes all-original music from Danielle Howle and original artwork created specifically for the film by Anna Redwine, both South Carolinians.

Additionally, USC Media Arts students worked alongside industry professionals on the production, gaining valuable experience about feature filmmaking in the process.  In fact, Sefick, who also taught production classes at USC during the filming, said that teaching these students about film was one of the goals of the production and that the shooting schedule was coordinated around the fall and spring semesters. 

Several have since gone on to work in the industry, including such recent South Carolina productions as the Kevin Bacon film "Death Sentence" and the ongoing television production "Army Wives."

South Carolina ETV is the state's public educational broadcasting network with 11 television and eight radio transmitters, and a multi-media educational system in more than 2,500 schools, colleges, businesses and government agencies. Using television, radio and the web, SCETV's mission is to enrich lives by educating children, informing and connecting citizens, celebrating our culture and environment and instilling the joy of learning.

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For more information, contact Rob Schaller at (803) 737-6556 or rschaller@scetv.org.