Traci L. Slatton’s ‘HEROIC’ Wins Newport Beach Film Festival Audience Award

Traci L. Slatton’s documentary ‘Heroic’ captures Sabin Howard’s nine-year battle to create the National WWI Memorial sculpture. January 2027 digital release.

NEWPORT BEACH, CA, UNITED STATES, November 6, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — HEROIC: Sabin Howard Sculpts the National WWI Memorial, the staggering documentary chronicling a nine-year battle to revive monumental narrative art, has been awarded the Audience Award for Best Art, Architecture + Design Feature at the 2026 Newport Beach Film Festival, sharing the honor with Leica – A Century of Vision.

Freestyle Digital Media, a division of Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group, recently acquired digital distribution rights to HEROIC. The film brings A Soldier’s Journey—the 58-foot-long, 25-ton bronze masterpiece at the heart of America’s National WWI Memorial—from Washington, D.C., to the screen.

For global institutions dedicated to the preservation of cultural memory, classical beauty, and human dignity—from the Vatican’s cultural institutions to the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) and international academies of art—HEROIC signals a profound cultural turning point. The film documents a modern renaissance: the return to classical humanism and the painstaking physical labor required to immortalize the human spirit in bronze.

Internationally bestselling author Traci L. Slatton did not merely observe the project; she occupied three colliding roles—director, project manager, and wife to the master sculptor.

As Sabin Howard wrestled clay into submission, calling upon real combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan as live models, Slatton helmed the war room. She captured the ticking-clock saga with unfiltered intimacy, fighting federal design battles, navigating pandemic shutdowns, and managing intense marital and studio tensions.

“HEROIC is not just a film about the making of a monument; it is a testament to what is required to create enduring art in the modern age,” said Slatton. “Sabin and I were driven by a duty to the veterans who sacrificed everything, and to a global culture that is hungry for art that elevates our shared humanity. To see this resonate so deeply with audiences at Newport Beach is deeply satisfying. We can still build beautiful things. And the world is ready to embrace monumental storytelling once again.”

KEY HIGHLIGHTS OF THE MONUMENT AND THE FILM
– Unprecedented Scale: A Soldier’s Journey is the largest freestanding high-relief bronze sculpture in the Western Hemisphere, featuring 38 larger-than-life figures.
– Profound Human Connection: Modern combat veterans stepped in as live models, bringing their own experience of combat into the faces of the World War I soldiers.
– A Cultural Renaissance: The monument and the film represent a bold rejection of post-modern fragmentation, returning to the highest standards of classical craftsmanship and narrative art.
– Extreme Filmmaking: A rare, nine-year firsthand account where the director’s responsibility to deliver a multimillion-dollar memorial clashed directly with the demands of compelling cinema.
– For cultural institutions seeking art that inspires, unites, and remembers, HEROIC stands as both a blueprint and a battle cry. The film proves that the capacity for generational, transcendent art is not lost to history.

HEROIC: Sabin Howard Sculpts the National WWI Memorial will digitally release in January 2027.

For early screening access, press inquiries, or institutional exhibition requests, please visit heroicdocumentary.com or contact the media representative below.

MEDIA CONTACT
Michelle Czernin von Chudenitz
EPEC Media
michelle@epecmedia.com | 310-600-0575

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Traci L. Slatton is an internationally bestselling author, director, and project manager. Her unique position at the intersection of literary storytelling, monumental art production, and documentary filmmaking provides an unmatched lens into the human cost of artistic creation.

Michelle Czernin von Chudenitz
EPEC Media
+1 310-600-0575
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