Showings on July 19 and July 20
The Atomic Rocketeer, a 2024 documentary from award winning producer Larry L. Sheffield, will premier at the Fountain Theater in Mesilla, New Mexico, on July 19 and July 20, 2024. The third in a series of documentaries from Sheffield, The Atomic Rocketeer tells the complete story of Wernher Von Braun, the German scientist, and his band of German Rocketeers who were acquired by the Americans days after the fall of Germany during World War II.
The film tells the untold story of Von Braun's efforts to build a novel weapon to win World War II for Germany, which became the largest project every taken on by Hitler and his Nazi command. The results didn't turn the tide of the war for the Germans but did gain the intense interest of the United States which led to a secret mission called "Operation Paperclip" at the end of the war. This mission enabled the Americans to take the Nazi dream of rockets and pivot those efforts to the American advantage. The Atomic Rocketeer features amazing recently discovered footage that tells this compelling story, including footage from the country's first rocket proving ground in the remote New Mexico desert at White Sands.
Award-winning producer Larry L. Sheffield, has garnered 22 national and international film festival awards to date for the films in this series, including "Best Historical Film" for 2023 at the Cannes World Film Festival in Cannes, France, for his second film Oppenheimer: After Trinity. His first short documentary was Alamogordo: Center of the World, Trinity 1945. Sheffield's films were created to preserve on film, events that happened in New Mexico around the Manhattan Project, the Trinity Site Nuclear Test, Operation Paperclip, and other military events that shaped human history between 1945-1950 in New Mexico. 
Sheffield's films are known for their use of rare footage, photographs, de-classified military documents, and compelling interviews, combined with his unique talent for bringing the story and history to life on the big screen. "This story effects every human being on earth that wants to learn the history behind humans discovering the quest for space and beyond," said Sheffield.
The complete story of what happened in the New Mexico desert with the well-known German scientist Wernher von Braun is now available in this epic documentary. Alamogordo and Las Cruces played a major role in the future of space exploration.
The Atomic Rocketeer will be showing at the Fountain Theater on July 19 at 7:00 pm and July 20 at 2:00 pm. The Fountain Theater is located at 2469 Calle De Guadalupe, Mesilla, NM.
