By Don Bradley
Dena Hildebrand worked in non-profits and private business, successfully, her whole life but always knew something was missing.
Her brain was doing it all.
It was her heart that itched.
So, seven years ago, at age 60, she started making movies.
Documentary films.
Turned out she’s pretty good at it. In just a few years through her company called Butterfly Productions, the Loch Lloyd resident has produced and directed four documentary films.
Three have won awards and the fourth is set for its first screening on Oct. 30.
The new one is “Voice Unbroken.” It tells the story of longtime sports broadcaster Art Hains whose career included stops with the Dallas Cowboys, Kansas City Chiefs and for 42 years as the voice of the Missouri State Bears.
Hains was a small-town Missouri boy who got to do his life’s dream before West Nile Virus came along in 2022 and paralyzed and nearly killed him.
He didn’t go quietly. He came back and even did a few games by remote from a hospital bed. But there was limited mobility and he worried he was relying on too much help from his wife and daughter so recently he called it quits for the Bears and the Chiefs.
That’s the kind of story that Dena Hildebrand looks for.
“I know it when I hear it,” she said last week in her Loch Lloyd home where she does much of her work.
And she heard it in Art Hains.
Voice Unbroken is the story of one person. Just like the other films she’s done.
Her first was “Finding Peace, Maylo’s story” about one woman’s survival from drugs, homelessness and sexual abuse.
Next was “Mildred’s Escape, a World War II survival story.” It tells the story of a Kansas girl whose family moved back to Europe at the start of World War II and survived harsh conditions under Soviet occupation after the war.
“Small Town Girl, Big Heart” tells about a girl’s resilience after being ejected from a pickup and hitting a speeding train.
All three, very personal, one person. That’s what Hildebrand looks for in a story. She doesn’t do the technical duties such as shooting and editing.
Her thing is the story and getting it on a screen. She does the interviews.
“I know what I want to see and I know what I want to hear and I can find people to make those happen,” she said.
She had an “in” with Hains. She has a friend who is a close friend of Hains’ wife, and the bunch had seen a couple of Hildebrand’s earlier films.
“He really liked my work,” Hildebrand said.
When Hains heard she wanted to do a documentary film on him, he was taken aback.
“I was so honored,” he said. “I couldn’t believe that somebody would want to do something like that about me.”
Hains started his career while still in high school working at a radio station in his hometown of Marshall, Mo., later became the longtime voice of the MSU Bears and from 2008 to just recently the studio host for the Kansas City Chiefs’ radio network.
As part of the production, Hildebrand’s crew went to Marshall and interviewed a couple of Hain’s high school buddies.
“Voice Unbroken” is her first film with an original score and the first to meet a length required to be called a feature film.
“For all those years, I really didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing with my life,” she said last week.
“And this is it. I feel like I finally found my passion.”
“Voice Unbroken” premiers Oct. 30 at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Springfield, Mo.
The Kansas City screening is set for Nov. 8 at the Glenwood Arts Theater. Plans also call for a showing in Marshall, Mo.
Tickets are now on sale.
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