Next Tuesday (23rd April) I'll be introducing a special screening of Jeymes Samuel's The Book of Clarence (2024) at the Phoenix Cinema in Leicester. There are still some places spare so you'd be interested in coming along you can still get tickets here.  Come along, say hello and, if you want, have me sign your copy of "100 Bible Films".  It all starts at 7:45pm ..read more

I have been working through The Chosen very slowly, but in order, mainly because I'm trying to write up the episodes as I go. However, as I was running a Jesus in film course last weekend, I wanted to have a look at the way it deals with the Sermon on the Mount so I jumped ahead. So it makes some sort of sense to write some initial impressions now, even if I have more to say when I worked my way through the rest of the episodes in season 2.Writing the sermon The first point of note is that Jesus and Matthew are now heading off into the hills on writing retreats. I don't know if there's b ..read more

This should really have been a start of the year post, but I'm thinking about possible screenings I could introduce or films reaching significant milestones this year that might be good to write about / talk about at festivals / discuss on podcasts etc. so I thought it would be good to create a (non-exhaustive) list of the main ones. 100 years (1924)  Die Sklavenkönigin (The Moon of Israel, Michael Curtiz) Quo Vadis? (Gabriellino D'Annunzio & Georg Jacoby)75 years (1949) Samson and Delilah (Cecil B. DeMille)70 years (1954) Day of Triumph (John T. Coyle & Irving Pichel ..read more

Two weekends ago I had the privilege of being a judge for The Pitch film fund, which offers production finance, support and training to filmmakers, particularly those based on stories from Bible. At stake were two opportunities to get £30,000 funding each to make their short film – one for comedy and one for drama.  This year we were spoilt for choice and so it's really exciting to know these two films will soon be made, possibly even in the next year. Jael Drives the Nail The first is Maddie Dai's Jael Drives the Nail a comedy that takes place in Jael's tent in the moments leading up to ..read more

I was hoping, as I sat down to watch this episode, that it might be the kind that I could watch, find a couple of interesting things to say and then dash off a few quick words, content to be moving towards the new season while it still might be fresh. But alas, no. It turns out that this is one of those episodes about which there really is lots to say, partly down to my own quirky interests, partly down to things that I have read fans of the chosen writing about (shout out to anyone from any of The Chosen Facebook forums I've been visiting recently). Writing the Gospels The episode starts wit ..read more

I was in the middle of teaching my "Italian [Cinema] for Beginners" course when I got to see this, which on top of various other commitments (such as the day job) all rather piled up. So unfortunately, now not only is it also several weeks after this film's limited cinematic run, but I'm still going to have to settle for an "initial impressions" type post rather than something approaching a proper review. Apologies, then, if my recollection is a little sketchy. Journey to Bethlehem is the first Bible film to get a wide-ish release in the UK since I finished writing my book at the en ..read more

Netflix just released its annual viewing statistics for the first time. This is naturally very interesting for stats geeks like me, and naturally it wasn't long until I started seeing the figures for various biblical productions. Most strikingly, 2023 saw 30.9 million hours spent watching The Chosen on Netflix, 27.6 million in English, with a further 3 million hours spent viewing the series in Spanish. It's perhaps not surprising that Dallas Jenkins' crowdfunded series, which has been running since 2019, was the highest placed biblical show on the list.  The English and Spanish versions ..read more

I'm writing on, reading about and teaching on Italian cinema at the moment and have a session on the 1950s peplum films in a few weeks, so I thought it was time I watched Gianfranco Parolini's Sansone (Samson, 1961) as I've never seen it before. It was a film that I had looked into a little when I was compiling my book, but couldn't remember all the specifics of why I decided to include I grandi condottieri (Samson and Gideon, 1965). It was practically the only film to cover the story of Gideon and that was all I remembered. Turns out that another big factor is that, despite the title, Paroli ..read more

Shot in London's West End, the film of the stage production of the musical of the film is showing in UK cinemas at the moment. It's billing itself with a quote from Stefan Kyrias that "musical theatre doesn't come bigger than this" and even though it's been a hit on the West End where it played to packed out audiences, I'm surprised to see quite such a crowd turn up to see it on a damp Thursday evening in Leicester, with tickets twice the price of watching a standard movie. Dreams works' The Prince of Egypt (1998) was a massive hit when it launched 25 years ago. The studio was just starting o ..read more

The Book of Clarence premiered on Wednesday at the London Film Festival, so while it won't be on general release until January I paid to see it at the festival yesterday and there was even a brief introduction by director Jeymes Samuel beforehand. Samuel is best known for his 2022 western The Harder They Fall which told a fictional story based on real life Black characters from the wild west.1 This time around the approach is slightly different. The Jewish characters in the story, including minor roles for Jesus, Mary Magdalene and Jesus' parents are Black.2 The Romans are white. Moreover the ..read more