God on the
silver screen

>> The first Montreal Christian Film Festival
features some surprising choices

by MARK SLUTSKY

At first glance, the line-up at Montreal’s first-ever Christian Film Festival (motto: “The Message, the Love, the Hope”) doesn’t seem too surprising: The Passion of the Christ, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Joan of Arc are all understandable choices. Some, though, aren’t as obvious: The Matrix? Spiritual, maybe, but Christian?

Festival organizer and programmer Annalisa McLaren explains it this way: “I watched The Matrix and I just saw spirituality all through. I would say there’s a lot of Christian parallels! That’s why I originally chose The Matrix.” It wasn’t that simple, though, as some of McLaren’s programming choices ruffled feathers with Champlain-based Christian radio station WCHP, with whom the festival is advertising. As of press time, The Matrix has been replaced with Les Miserables, and three of the fest’s other selections (Freedom Writers, Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Reunion and Walk the Line) have been swapped out for presumably safer fare. “I’d rather change a few things, a few movies, rather than offend Christ, God and the people of God,” she explains.

“I’ll say the station actually did a good thing for me, because it made me reflect,” she says. “There’s going to be children, there’s going to be adults, there’s going to be pastors, there’s going to be a lot of people, I hope, and I don’t want to offend anybody! Next year I’ll put it in bold: check the movie’s rating before purchasing your tickets!”

Most of the festival’s other offerings are nonetheless the product of godless Hollywood: the Will Smith tearjerker The Pursuit of Happyness, Sidney Lumet’s classic courtroom drama 12 Angry Men and the football flick Facing the Giants. But it’s not all safer fare, like the doc Jesus Camp, with its less-than-flattering portrayal of evangelical Christianity (not to mention its prominent characterization, the now-outed New Life Church founder Ted Haggard). McLaren explains her choice this way: “I want Christian people to think. I thought it was well-documented, and I believe the children in the film are sincere.”

Ultimately, McLaren feels like she’s on a mission to get her co-religionists psyched for Christ: “It’s funny, when you have a football game, we’re all cheering and excited, and three weeks before the game the tickets are all sold out. I’m like, why can’t we do that for Christ? Our creator, our maker, our god? God has always had a bad rep, but he wants a personal relationship with you. You just need to get to know him. It’s time that God needs to get out of the box. Don’t get me wrong: we limit God, we put God in a box, when he is so big, he is the creator of this world. He loves each and every one of us dearly, and he just wants to show himself to us.”

The Montreal Christian Film Festival runs Oct. 5–7
at Concordia’s deSève Cinema; see Repertory
listings for showtimes. Though most of the films
are originally in English, about half of the movies
shown at the festival will be in their French dubbed
versions, so be sure to check the schedule for details

>> Movie Listings