50th Anniversary
From This Hill:
Christ College to Concordia
The documentary of Concordia University Irvine’s origin story. Features new interviews with Robert Holst and Martin Schramm from their last years among us, along with Shang Ik Moon, Dale Hartmann and Robert Dargatz. The film combines hundreds of original photos and documents from the campus archive, with firsthand accounts of the surprising story how Christ College Irvine opened and survived by the slimmest of margins, 50 years ago.
Production Team
H. Paul Moon and Sarah Johnson are children of Dr. Shang Ik Moon. Paul is a filmmaker and attorney based in New York City and Washington, D.C. Works include The Saxon New World (the origin story of the LCMS), 95 Theses, a PBS documentary about composer Samuel Barber, and Quartet for the End of Time, a WWII documentary about a musical setting of the Book of Revelation. His newest film is the Revolutionary War documentary By George, and he is currently finishing feature films on a band tour with Ensemble Nikel, and a biographical portrait of cellist Leonard Rose.
Sarah attended Christ College for her B.A. in Mathematics and teaching credential, then taught high school math for 16 years. As producer and archival researcher for this film, she compiled its hundreds of photographs and documents to tell the story. She lives in Tustin with husband Tab Johnson and serves on the Board of Trustees at Concordia University Irvine.
Stephen and Ethan Schneider are both grandsons of Dr. Charles “Chuck” Manske. Stephen, Dr. Manske’s oldest grandchild, is a video editor and producer based in Los Angeles. As editor of this film, he worked closely with director Paul Moon to tell the story of the university his family helped build.
Ethan is the first of Dr. Manske’s grandchildren to attend Concordia University Irvine, graduating in 2025 with a bachelor’s degree in music composition. Still based in Orange County, he supervised the music and sound design for this film.
Timothy Yim-Stueve is the grandson of Dr. D. Ray Halm. He grew up in Bend, Oregon and now works as a film archivist and projectionist in Los Angeles. He assisted with camera and sound for this film’s interview with Martin Schramm.