HEROIC documentary previews in London on June 24

The documentary HEROIC will preview June 24 at ARC 2026 in London, spotlighting Sabin Howard’s nine-year creation of A Soldier’s Journey, the National WWI Memorial’s bronze centerpiece in Washington, D.C. The film arrives as ARC frames the screening around a broader debate about rebuilding Western civilization through art, craft, and permanence. Why it matters: - HEROIC ties a major art project to a larger cultural argument about whether the West still knows how to build things meant to last. - The film centers on A Soldier’s Journey, the sculptural core of America’s National WWI Memorial, which honors 116,000 Americans who died in the Great War. - The London preview puts the memorial project in front of ARC 2026 attendees, a group gathered to discuss reconstruction and Western renewal. What happened: - HEROIC will preview on June 24 at ARC Conference 2026 at Olympia London in the United Kingdom. - The screening is scheduled for 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM BST on Wednesday, June 24, 2026. - The preview includes a live Q&A with director and filmmaker Traci L. Slatton and sculptor Charles Mostow, who served as assistant director. - ARC 2026 runs June 23–25, 2026, under the theme The Age of Reconstruction. The details: - HEROIC: Sabin Howard Sculpts the National WWI Memorial follows Howard’s nine-year creation of the memorial sculpture. - Filmmaker and producer Traci L. Slatton shot the documentary over 4,000 hours across three continents. - The production moved from Howard’s South Bronx studio to Weta Workshop in New Zealand and a fine arts foundry in Stroud, England. - Howard began the sculpture in 2015 and won the National WWI Memorial design competition in 2016. - The finished work includes 38 figures, weighs 25 tons, and stretches 58.5 feet. - The bronze relief is the largest free-standing relief in the Western hemisphere. - The memorial stands about 150 yards from the White House in Pershing Park, Washington, D.C. - The work was unveiled Sept. 14, 2024. - Howard used classical hand-sculpting combined with photogrammetry to complete the project on deadline. - The documentary covers setbacks that included the pandemic, friction with a federal commission, and copyright theft on two continents. - The memorial was conceived as a composition shaped by Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey and the structural imprint of Michelangelo’s Last Judgement. - More information is available at the film page and on IMDb at the film listing . Between the lines: - ARC is using the screening to move the conversation from theory to example, with the film presented as proof that large-scale cultural work can still be completed. - The release frames Howard’s sculpture as a rebuttal to the idea that the West has lost its capacity for craft, permanence, or commemoration. - The documentary also doubles as a behind-the-scenes record of how contemporary monumental art gets made under pressure from deadlines, institutions, and technical constraints. What’s next: - HEROIC will screen before ARC attendees in London on June 24. - The Q&A will give Slatton and Mostow a chance to discuss the making of the film and the memorial. - The screening may help broaden attention to A Soldier’s Journey and to the completed National WWI Memorial in Washington. The bottom line: - HEROIC is arriving as both an art documentary and a cultural statement: a nine-year record of one sculptor’s effort to make memory permanent in bronze.