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ETV's to Air Ken Burns's "The War," a New Seven-Part Epic Documentary About World War II, Beginning Sunday, Sept. 23

For Immediate Release
March 28, 2007

Episode Descriptions
See a Sneak Preview on ETV

Columbia, SC...ETV will air the new Ken Burns documentary series, THE WAR, beginning Sunday, Sept. 23 at 8 p.m. The seven-part documentary series, directed and produced by Burns and Lynn Novick, explores the history and horror of the Second World War from an American perspective by following the fortunes of so-called ordinary men and women who get caught up in the greatest cataclysm in human history.

Six years in the making, this epic film, reminiscent in scope and power of Burns’s landmark series The Civil War, focuses on the stories of citizens from four geographically distributed American towns -- Waterbury, CT; Mobile, AL; Sacramento, CA; and Luverne, MN. These four communities stand in for -- and could represent -- any town in the United States that went through the war's four devastating years. Individuals from each community take the viewer through their own personal and quite often harrowing journeys into war, painting vivid portraits of how it dramatically altered their lives and those of their neighbors, as well as the country they helped to save for generations to come.

"The Second World War was so massive, catastrophic and complex, it is almost beyond the mind's and the heart's capacity to process everything that happened and, more important, what it meant on a human level," said Burns.

By focusing on the personal stories of ordinary Americans who had extraordinary experiences, the film tries to bring one of the biggest events in the history of the world down to a very intimate scale. And in the end, we all begin to see that there are no "ordinary lives."

In addition to Keith David’s narration, THE WAR features first-person voices read by some of America’s greatest actors. Tom Hanks reads the voice of Al McIntosh, the editor of the Rock County Star-Herald in Luverne, MN, whose weekly columns poignantly tried to explain the unexplainable to his neighbors. Other voices include Josh Lucas, Bobby Cannavale, Samuel L. Jackson, Eli Wallach, Robert Wahlberg, Carolyn McCormack, Adam Arkin and Kevin Conway.

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.