By Peter Gambaccini

Photo of Jon Dunham and Deena Kastor courtesy of Jon Dunham

Jon Dunham, 30, is director, cinematographer, and producer of "Spirit of the Marathon," a documentary filmed on four continents and culminating at the 2005 La Salle Bank Chicago Marathon. "Spirit of the Marathon" will play nationwide in nearly 500 theatres for one day, January 24 (more details on this are in Dunham’s response to our first question). The film pays particular focus on six athletes - two of whom, Deena Kastor and Daniel Njenga, are world class. It also features commentary by a list of marathon luminaries including Frank Shorter, Joan Benoit Samuelson, Paula Radcliffe, Bill Rodgers, Dick Beardlsey, Kathrine Switzer, Grete Waitz, Alberto Salazar, Paul Tergat, and Amby Burfoot. Dunham, who has run more than 20 marathons, is a graduate of the University of Southern California School on Cinema-Television; he won a 2002 Telly Award for "No Distance Too Far," his film about a 600-mile California AIDS fundraising bicycle ride. Dunham’s colleagues in the making of "Spirit of the Marathon" are executive producer Mark Jonathan Harris, producer Gwendolen Twist, cinematographer Sarah Levy, and editor Christo Brock.

How do people go about getting their tickets for "Spirit of the Marathon" on January 24? Will it be in theatres in every state? And if they can’t see it that day, what other chances will they have to see it.
Jon Dunham: I believe it’s in all 48 states; that’s excluding Alaska and Hawaii, and we’re working on those states separately. But it should be available in the entire continental U.S. Tickets are available for purchase on line at www.fathomevents.com. All you have to do is enter a zip code and it will tell you where all the closest theatres are to you. Tickets are also available at the box office. We’re already seen some theatres, particularly in large metropolitan areas and areas with big running communities, sold out. It’s probably not a bad idea to purchase in advance. And I’d encourage people to do it, because it’s really a film to see on the big screen, to experience. We’ve never seen the marathon like this before. Depending on how successful the 24th is, there’s a possibility that hour distributor will do this same type of thing again, so there may be another date or two done the line, but nothing is set in stone with that yet. What we’re intending to do is make the film available on a limited release schedule in theatres around major running events throughout the year, like the Boston Marathon, obviously the Chicago Marathon, and the New York City Marathon. These are possibilities. We’re talking about television, and DVDs will be available in the summer.

The promotions for "Spirit of the Marathon" stress that the movie shows the marathon in a way it's never been shown before. There have been many documentaries about the marathon. What are the real differences about the way it’s shown this time?
JD: Well, several things. I certainly want to pay homage to some of the great films that came prior to "Spirit of the Marathon," like Kon Ichikawa’s footage in "Tokyo Olympiad," which is the most classic footage of Abebe Bikila. We feature some of that footage in the film. There has been actually surprisingly little done on the marathon outside of the regular television coverage of large races and Olympic specials and things like that. So what we set out to do was really take a comprehensive look at the event and...