“But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.”
Matthew 5:44
“To look at art by people of different experiences – whether cultural, religious, economic, or otherwise – is a way of stepping outside of what is comfortable and familiar in order to become more compassionate. It cultivates understanding, and thus sympathy, with people who are different than us. This is an especially powerful endeavor if we are willing to consider how our enemies experience the world – what a giant step it takes us toward loving them as Christ requires” [1]
One of the purposes of the Film Ministry at St Timothy’s is to do just this. To have films available to watch which allow us to enter into the experiences of people different then us, sometimes radically different then us. This is not easy. It is difficult, sometimes very difficult and often it is almost easier just to say, “I don’t want to know. I don’t need to know” but Jesus calls us to love them and to do this we need to try and understand where they are coming from and what they have experienced. Films can allow us this experience. Good films are authentic and enlightening and have a “Christlike perspective” which is concerned with more than justice. To love one’s enemy is to consider and care what happens to him.[2]
I have some new films in the Ministry.The first one is titled, “Faith Like Potatoes”. This is a film produced by Affirm Films, a division of Sony this is a motion picture label launched in 2008 to release gospel and Christian films. Based on the novel Faith Like Potatoes, this inspiring film tells the story of Angus Buchan, a South African farmer who suffers a series of seemingly insurmountable losses, but through an unlikely friendship with his Zulu farmhand and divine interventions, discovers the key to healing himself and learning to accept others lies in his unwavering belief in the power of faith. This powerful DVD includes a gripping 54 minute documentary on the real life Angus Buchan, the making of Faith Like Potatoes, director and cast commentary, deleted scenes and more.
Another new film to the Ministry is “The Necessities of Life”. This film was Canada's submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the 81st Academy Awards. Set in the early 1950s, the movie tells the story of Tivii (Natar Ungalaaq), an Inuit in the Far North who is diagnosed with tuberculosis by a doctor on a visiting hospital ship and promptly sent south to a sanatorium in Quebec. Separated from his family and unable to communicate with the concerned but condescending staff or his chain-smoking fellow patients, he is devastated by the effects of his isolation. Yet tentative connections with a nurse (Éveline Gélinas) and an orphaned Inuit boy (Paul-André Brasseur) help reintroduce him to the real necessities. This film is in French with English subtitles.
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