TV & Movies

Sound of Freedom director reveals how much of the movie is true

Daisy Phillipson
Jim Caviezel as Tim Ballard in Sound of FreedomAngel Studios

In an in-depth new interview, Sound of Freedom director Alejandro Monteverde has opened up about the furor surrounding the movie while revealing how much of the narrative is true. 

There’s a lot to unpack when it comes to Sound of Freedom. There’s lead star Jim Caviezel’s links to QAnon, claims of Disney purposely shelving the project and anti-Christian bias, allegations of cinemas sabotaging screenings, a funder’s arrest for child kidnapping, and a TikTok star who was admitted into a facility after watching the film. 

These are just a few of the discussions that have arisen since Sound of Freedom’s release last month, another involving the man the movie is based upon: Tim Ballard. Though the former federal agent founded Operation Underground Railroad in a bid to end child sex trafficking, critics have questioned the legitimacy of his actions.

OUR states that while Sound of Freedom contains “exaggerated or fabricated elements included for dramatic purposes,” there are numerous factual moments such as the rescue operation on a Colombian island. But how much of the movie is true to life? Monteverde has the answer. 

Sound of Freedom director reveals how much of the movie is true

Alejandro Monteverde spoke with Forbes about the global success of Sound of Freedom and the discussions surrounding it, including how true to life the movie and the story of Tim Ballard is.

“I would dare to say that 75% of the film is as accurate as it happened in real life,” the director told the outlet. “There’s a good 25% that I had to take creative license [with] to just be able to take all these years of his life into an hour-and-a-half or two hours that the movie is.”

Monteverde went on to say that the “one thing that is true” is that Ballard did leave his pension and his financially stable government job as a special agent at the Department of Homeland Security in order to pursue his quest to rescue children from child sex trafficking rings. 

“That was the most heroic thing, for me, that he did,” added Monteverde. “More than going into the heart of darkness.”

The filmmaker also explained that he didn’t want the movie to be too realistic, “because otherwise you wouldn’t be able to digest it,” adding: “I wanted it to be like a show… like a spectacle.”

“The fact that there’s a fight – I didn’t want it to be real, like a real fight,” he said. “I wanted it to be symbolical, that we’re in a fight between light and darkness.”

When the interviewer asked whether the fight in Sound of Freedom didn’t happen, Monteverde explained: “He did go, his life has been many times worse than that, to the point that he thought he was going to die. 

“So that’s why I say I would only take creative license if it happened. So, he had an incident that was very close to that where he didn’t even have a chance to fight, but he was just going to be killed. And in the middle of nowhere. 

“I was like, ‘Well, you went through that in another country. Can I take that and put it here?’ And it took months for me to convince him because he wanted to stay really true – but yes, those are the little things that I will put in the 25%, but the essence stays true.”

To read more about Sound of Freedom, hit the links below:

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