East Idaho News
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New film portrays 'amazing' true story of search for boy lost in abandoned Utah mine 35 years ago
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September 10, 2024
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16:24Now Playing#eastidahonews #faithofangels #miracles
IDAHO FALLS – A regional story that made national headlines 35 years ago is the subject of a new movie premiering across the country this month.
“Faith of Angels” tells the story of 10-year-old Josh Dennis, a boy who was lost in an abandoned mine in Utah’s Oquirrh Mountains in 1989. He was found after a five day search.
“By the end of it, it was national news to the point that Josh received a letter from President H.W. Bush. He wished (Josh) well on his recovery and expressed that his story is evidence that miracles still happen,” Garrett Batty, the film’s director, tells EastIdahoNews.com.
The film premieres in Utah this Thursday and will be released nationwide, including eastern Idaho, on Sept. 26.
Though the outcome of Josh’s story is common knowledge, Batty says it’s the miracles that happened along the way that make the movie worth seeing.
Batty spent two years working on the project and collaborated with those involved in the real-life incident, including Josh, who is now 45 years old. He and his wife have a cameo appearance in the film.
Cast members include Michael Bradford as Josh and Kirby Heyborne as Josh’s dad. John Michael Finley, who starred in the 2018 film “I Can Only Imagine,” portrays the lead character, John Skinner.
“John Skinner is a man several states away … who wakes up in the middle of the night and says, ‘I’ve got to go to Utah.’ He has no idea why,” Batty explains.
Although Skinner didn’t know Josh or the Dennis Family at the time, Batty says he ended up playing a critical role in the search effort.
Connecting the dots and showing how people’s lives intersected in miraculous ways during the five-day ordeal is what compelled Batty to bring this story to the screen.
WATCH OUR INTERVIEW WITH BATTY IN THE VIDEO ABOVE.
READ THE FULL STORY HERE
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