The WWII documentary Rohna Classified is set to have a limited screening starting Memorial Day weekend. For one week only (May 24 - June 1, 2024), the film will be available to stream around the world. On select nights, there will be live panel discussions with survivors and historians in which viewers can participate. Viewers will have the option of watching the film without charge or making a donation to the film's outreach and distribution campaign.
Produced by Jack Ballo and Michael Walsh, the 60-minute documentary sheds light on the largest loss of life at sea in the history of any US war. Their goal is that the documentary reaches the 1015 families of the soldiers killed in the sinking of the HMT Rohna. "It's time to tell the truth," Ballo, the film's director, said about the classified attack. Seventy-nine of the soldiers killed in the attack were from New Jersey.
After five years of meticulous research to produce the documentary, the truth about the attack will finally be told. The film uncovers classified documents revealing that neglect and oversight contributed to the large number of casualties in the secret disaster. The government deflected responsibility by declaring the disaster classified and ordering all survivors to remain silent. The casualty families were stonewalled and most of them went to their own graves never knowing what happened... their boys just never came home.
Families of casualties throughout the country are still trying to piece together how their loved ones died in what some believe was a cover-up by the government. As a component of the movie's outreach initiative, the filmmakers are endeavoring to locate the families of the soldiers who came from 47 different states throughout the US. A list of Rohna casualties, organized by state and hometown, can be accessed via a link on the movie website.
The film seeks to honor the forgotten soldiers while uncovering the story behind the sinking of the HMT Rohna. Ballo hopes that the documentary will finally give the classified Rohna attack its rightful place in US history while providing closure for the 1015 Gold Star families who are still searching for answers.
The film will stream online May 24th - June 1st. Details can be found on the movie website.
Jack Ballo was in the video production business for over twenty years before he started making documentary films. He worked on hundreds of projects behind the camera, editing, producing and writing. In 2008 he was offered an opportunity to go to the Dominican Republic and film poor families who were living in extreme poverty. That video, “A Crisis Observed,” changed the direction of his production company and he started producing documentary films.
All his documentaries have social value to them while bringing awareness to interesting people and untold stories that the traditional media doesn’t cover. He started by producing humanitarian films in third world countries. His first documentary, Wrong Turn (2008) highlighted a Canadian man who built houses for families living in shacks in the Dominican Republic. In 2010, Ballo went back to the Dominican Republic and made an award-winning short documentary called Elio (2010). He continued making films about social issues including his next documentary about singer songwriter, Mary Gauthier, who searches for the truth about her adoption. Before You Leave (2012) won Best Documentary at the film’s premiere at the Garden State Film Festival.
Jack and Barbara Ballo
Ballo went on to co-write his first screenplay, The Doo Dah Man (2015), based on the true story of his own experience hitchhiking to California and being picked up in a stolen car by a con artist who broke out of prison. The award-winning feature film is a Flatiron Pictures production distributed by Invincible Pictures. His next documentary, Destiny's Bridge (2016), was a critically acclaimed feature filmed in Lakewood, NJ. The controversial movie is about a homeless minister who leads a community living in the woods while facing eviction. The award-winning film received national attention by bringing the idea of “tiny houses for the poor and homeless” into the tiny house movement. In 2017 Ballo broke barriers by making one of the first documentaries shot completely with a hand held iPhone without using any apps or accessories. Brothers (2018), is a story about two brothers living off the grid and their struggle to survive while dealing with alcoholism. The movie played in film festivals all over the world and won 8 awards. Soon after making Brothers, Ballo went on to teach a filmmaking course at Count Basie Center for the Arts. Ballo has spent the last five years working on Rohna Classified.
