More new on the Coptic Jesus Film

It's almost four years since I blogged about plans to make a Coptic Jesus film. The current financial difficulties seem to have accounted for so many Bible film (and other independent) projects that I thought this had been one of them, but, according to Cairo's Al-Ahram, apparently not.

There's quite a bit in the article, not least the news that the project is about to start filming. But it's mainly based on quotes from Muslim director Ahmed Maher,(rather than Coptic Christian screenwriter Fayez Ghali) who sees it as his task "to present a religious story in a secular way". But it looks like Maher is keen to give the film a distinctly Egyptian twist.

he country that embraced Christ the infant when no one else would: "it is important for the West to understand that Egypt...is itself the country that embraced Christ the infant when no one else would. This is the principal issue on which the film is based."

Thanks to David Wilson for letting me know about this article.

Saint Mary and Jesus the Spirit of God on Google Video

Peter Chattaway's blog has been quiet recently whilst he's been at VIFF, but he has popped up at Arts and Faith with a few interesting bits and pieces. Two items that caught my eye in particular were regarding two 'Islamic' Jesus films coming up on Google Video. I've had a copy of Saint Mary, for a while, but it's nice that there's a subtitled version available to view for free. There's also Mesih/Massiah/Jesus the Spirit of God. I couldn't find the video Peter refers to, but it looks like the whole film is available on YouTube. No subtitles for that one unfortunately. Hopefully I'll get a chance to watch these soon.

Arabic Jesus Film - The Resurrected

Photo by Tinou Bao, used under a Creative Commons Licence

Peter Chattaway has posted an article from Variety about a $2 million Jesus film being made in Lebanon. Shooting is due to start in the summer with the aim being for an initial release at Easter 2010. That's starting to look like a busy period; Mary, Mother of the Christ is also due to arrive in cinemas at the same time.

It looks like Lebanese director Samir Habchi (Beirut, Open City) will direct the film, currently named The Resurrected, whilst the actor chosen to play Jesus is called Youssef Al-Khal.

Despite the claims of producers Eagle Pictures / the Marwa Group, there have been a couple of similar projects recently. Back in 2006 there was talk of a Coptic Jesus film and i talked quite a bit last year about the Iranian Jesus production Mesih (a.k.a. Jesus, the Spirit of God).

Like Mesih, the producers are hoping their film will foster "mutual respect... between Christians, Muslims and Jews". Having seen neither film, I'm keen to see how this would work in practice, particularly as elsewhere there's talk of the "redemptive nature of Jesus’ message" and the film's working title obviously refers to a specifically Christian doctrine. The producers plan to take aspects from the canonical gospels but it will be interesting to see if any other ancient sources are also in evidence.

The story will apparently be told from Mary Magdalene's perspective via the use of flasbacks, an idea that was used in 2007's Magdalena, Released from Shame. As they are planning to shoot on the sites where Jesus visited (such as Tyre), it will be interesting to see if they opt to film on either of the two Israeli sites touted as being Mary's supposed home town of Magdala.

LA Times on Jesus Spirit of God

Jeffrey Fleishman of the LA Times has written what I think is the longest article yet on the Iranian Jesus film Jesus Spirit of God (a.k.a. Mesih or The Messiah). There's also and accompanying video file and a brief entry by Fleishman at the LA Times Blog.

There are a few interesting comments on this one. Firstly, it's the first time I recall the actor playing Jesus, Ahmad Soleimani-Nia, being discussed at length. Apparently he's been in character for 7 years as director Nader Talebzadeh "never knows when he might shoot new sequences for the film".

Secondly, Talezadeh seems more evangelistic in this piece than previous articles have suggested. For example, the recent Breitbart article which quoted him as saying he wanted the film to "make a bridge between Christianity and Islam, to open the door for dialogue" and so on. Here, though, he claims to "pray for Christians" and says that "They've been misled. They will realize one day the true story."

Finally the soon to be released TV series of Jesus Spirit of God will apparently run to 1000 hours. That sounds like a long time, but, as Peter Chattaway notes, that's only as long as twenty-two 40-45 minute long episodes, or a series of West Wing if you will.

CNN Video on The Messiah

Yesterday's Biblical Studies Carnival brought my attention to a couple of other bloggers who have been discussing the Iranian Jesus film Mesih (The Messiah). Tony Chartrand-Burke discusses both it and The Aquarian Gospel over at Apocryphicity, and Jim Davila of PaleoJudaica notes a similarity with Life of Brian.

However, the big news is that CNN have a report showing some footage from the film interspersed with some comments from director Nader Talebzadeh. According to that the film will be released over the web shortly. I should warn you, however, that the report contains a major spoiler. I've been trying to get hold of Talebzadeh to get more information, but, as you might imagine, it's not that easy.

ABC on Jesus the Spirit of God

ABC News have interviewed Nader Talebzadeh the director of Mesih the film about Jesus based not only on the canonical gospels, but also The Koran, and, it would seem, the Gospel of Barnabas. The film, which won an award at Rome's Religion Today Film Festival is currently being made into a mini-series, and Talebzadeh was keen to talk about how he thought it could strengthen inter-faith dialogue as well as breakdown misunderstandings between Iran and the US.

Peter Chattaway has also covered this story commenting in partiocular on Talebzadeh's statements about the Gospel of Barnabas.

Another Islamic 'Bible' Film

Firstly a few more bits on Mesih / Jesus, the Spirit of God (the image above [AFP] is of Talebzadeh during filming. It's interesting to note how the two actors pictured are so middle eastern looking, particularly when compared to the film's image of a blond Jesus shown below).

Firstly, the Breitbart article that I discussed a few days ago has disappeared, although it's still available at Islam Online. Secondly, the story has been followed up by an article in Variety which includes the following quotation:

"It is important to show our history before the Islamic revolution," said CMI managing director Mohammed Reza Abbasian. "These episodes of religious history and Iranian history are very popular with Iranian audiences. We want to show the opinions of Islam toward the prophet. This story came from the Koran without any changes. You could call it Jesus through Islam's lens."

But then the article also goes on to discuss the next project by Iran's state broadcaster Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcastingand its production and sales arm Cima Media Intl.

CMI execs have even bigger plans for their follow-up skein, a $20 million version of the life of Joseph and his multi-colored coat, helmed by Farajollah Salahshoor, that is set to be one of Iran's biggest-budget productions ever.

The costly skein could be described as a passion project for its producers, as they will have little chance to ever recoup their money back from foreign sales.

"We have tried to sell it to Arab TV stations, but they say that they cannot show the face of the prophets, and, at the same time, it's not good for European TV," said Abbasian. "The Iranian government is spending its money on the project, but it wasn't supposed to cost this much.

"When you start a project you say it will cost $2 million, but we wanted to film this on 35mm not video so it's become more expensive. We can't stop the project now. We have to spend more money so we can save the money we already spent. Next time, though, we will film with HD or Digi-Beta."

I imagine this will be a more serious take on it than Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat. It'll be interesting to find out how the Joseph story varies in the Koran, and also whether the "coat of many colours" features, given that biblical scholars now consider that particular phrase a mis-translation (it should be coat with long sleeves or something along those lines).

More on Islamic Jesus Film(s)

About a year ago, I made a couple of posts about a possible Muslim-made film about the life of Jesus called The Messiah (official site?). At the time, Peter Chattaway also reported on the story. Now, he's picked it up again linked to an article at Breitbart which discusses what appears to be the same film only with the (new?) title - Jesus, the Spirit of God.

Both Mesih and Jesus, the Spirit of God are by Iranian director Nader Talebzadeh, and were released around some point last year. Indeed Jesus, the Spirit of God won an award in Italy's "Religion Today Film Festival" in 2007. It's also about to be expanded into a 20 part series to run on Iranian national TV.

The same article has been used wholesale in a number of different publications originating with Agence France-Presse, so I'll only reproduce the bit that most caught my eye.

Talebzadeh insists it aims to bridge differences between Christianity and Islam, despite the stark divergence from Christian doctrine about Christ's final hours on earth.

"It is fascinating for Christians to know that Islam gives such devotion to and has so much knowledge about Jesus," Talebzadeh told AFP.

"By making this film I wanted to make a bridge between Christianity and Islam, to open the door for dialogue since there is much common ground between Islam and Christianity," he said.

The director is also keen to emphasise the links between Jesus and one of the most important figures in Shiite Islam, the Imam Mahdi, said to have disappeared 12 centuries ago but whose "return" to earth has been a key tenet of the Ahmadinejad presidency.

[snip]

The bulk of "Jesus, the Spirit of God", which won an award at the 2007 Religion Today Film Festival in Italy, faithfully follows the traditional tale of Jesus as recounted in the New Testament Gospels, a narrative reproduced in the Koran and accepted by Muslims.

But in Talebzadeh's movie, God saves Jesus, depicted as a fair-complexioned man with long hair and a beard, from crucifixion and takes him straight to heaven.

"It is frankly said in the Koran that the person who was crucified was not Jesus" but Judas, one of the 12 Apostles and the one the Bible holds betrayed Jesus to the Romans, he said. In his film, it is Judas who is crucified.

Weird Goings on with Koranic Jesus Films

On Friday I posted about one, or is it two, film(s) about Jesus written from the perspective of the Koran. By accident I missed off the link for a website which seemed to belong to one of them (or was it a third film). So I went back today to try and correct the error. Yet strangely, over the weekend, the site seems to have disappeared. It's still available on Google cache (where would we be without Google cache?), but otherwise it seems to have gone without trace. I can't help the darker side of my imagination running away with this one.

Meanwhile, Peter Chattaway has done some research on this one, and he seems to think that the film Son of Mary isn't so much of a Jesus film as one where Jesus makes a cameo appearance in a modern day story. Oh, and it seems to be 8 years old (blush). IMDB doesn't have any details for either film, although Peter finds the following capsule review for Son of Mary from the New York Times:

An unlikely friendship between a young Muslim child and an aging Catholic priest forms the basis for this touching story. Moshen Falsafin plays a little boy whose mother died in childbirth. A good student who works hard to help his father, he is troubled by one thought -- he does not know what his mother looked like. When the boy meets a priest (Rafik Dergabrilian) and expresses his concern, the cleric suggests the boy imagine his mother looked like his portrait of the Virgin Mary. Pesareh Maryam/Son Of Mary was the directorial debut of noted Iranian actor Hamid Jebeli.

Koranic Jesus Film(s) - The Son of Mary / The Messiah

I've received two pieces of news in the last 24 hours about a film being made about Jesus based on the Qu'ranic accounts of his life. Last month, I discussed Iranian film St. Mary which looks at the story of Jesus's mother from the Koran. I received a comment on that post from Ali who says "Soon to be released is the Farsi movie, The Messiah, a movie about the life of Jesus Christ (according to the Qur'an)". He indicates that it's being distributed by the Jafria Association of North America. From what I can work out the website from this film might be this one.

Then earlier today I got an email from my friend Thomas Langkau who is in the latter stages of getting his book about Jesus Films, "Filmstar Jesus Christus" published (more to follow on that later). He pointed out this website to me which, like his book, is in German. A very rough translation of it is as follows:

Iranian Jesus Film at Catholic Festival

The Iranian director Hamid Jebelli is showing the life Jesus from the view-point of the Koran.

The Iranian film about Jesus Christ is one of the high points of the Mirror-Image-Ritual Film Festivals "Tertio Millennio", which takes place at present in Rome. Director of the Iranian film "The Son of Mary" is Hamid Jebelli, a Muslim. The film represents the Koranic view of the history of Jesus.

"Voices of the spirit" in the film production

The festival is organized by the magazine "Rivista del Cinematografo" together with the Italian catholic play combination. The director/conductor of the festival, Andrea Piersanti stressed, it is a matter of hearing the "voice of the spirit in the film production of the present".

There are a couple things to add to this. Firstly, it's unclear whether these are two different films or not. Certainly it seems quite a coincidence that two films about Jesus based on the Koran have come to the fore at the same time. But then the titles are different, although obviously that often is the case when films are translated into different languages.

Secondly, I wonder how these movies/this movie will film Jesus. As an Islamic prophet I'd imagine he is unlikely to appear on screen, or has this film decided to ignore that? If not will it film the story through his eyes like The Message, or Lance Tracy's The Cross (which it would appear is now available on DVD)?

Finally, FilmChat has linked to shiachat.com where there is some more discussion about the St Mary film, in relation to The Nativity Story

Saint Mary Iranian film

My friend Peter Chattaway recently interviewed Shohreh Aghdashloo at the junket for The Nativity Story (Aghdashloo plays Elizabeth). Along the way, she mentioned an Iranian made film called Saint Mary which neither Peter or I were aware of.

Peter's done some research and written a post on the film which includes finding the retailers website, which includes a montage of clips from the film. A different selection of clips are available on YouTube in Farsi (with English subtitles).

One thing Peter doesn't mention is that the film would appear to be primarily based on the Qu'ran. Sura 3 discusses the birth of Mary, including some indications that Israel's deliverer was already expected at that point, and Surah 19 deals with Mary's role in the birth of Jesus. I notice that Aghdashloo declared that "Obviously it's been distorted, it's not the real story" in the interview. I'm not sure whether this is a reference to it being based on the Qu'ran rather than the bible (and if this was the Grace Hill organised event she would have known Peter was a Christian) or just to the fact that padding out either version of the story to fill its incredible 6 hour run time.

Whilst the original is in Farsi it is available to buy in an English dubbed version in a number of different countries (including the US and the UK). There was also a screening of the film last year, put on by the Islamic Centre of England

A Coptic / Arabic Jesus Film?

Jeffrey Overstreet has discovered news about plans to make a Jesus film in Arabic. It's a plan between Coptic Christian Fayez Ghali, and a Muslim producer Mohammed Uchub/Ashub/Ashoub, and has already caused quite a stir, even though it would appear that the film is a long way from being made. In particular, when they requested authorisation from Al-Azhar, an ancient mosque that has extended to become an academic institution, and the "highest authority in Sunni Islam",¹ they were told that "the image of the prophet [Jesus should] not appear".

Peter T Chattaway has rounded up a number of different news articles on the story, so I recommend you read his post and the various links he has assembled.

One thing that does seem strange is that there are already two films that provide something of a precedent here. Firstly, the Jesus film (1979), has, of course, been translated into Arabic already. Secondly, as others have pointed out, The Passion of the Christ played in Egypt without problems. Indeed some cited its generally positive reception as evidence of its anti-Semitism.

Part of the reason I was slow out of the blocks on this one is that I'm not overly optimistic that it will ever get made. I hope it does. Whilst I eagerly anticipate seeing this years' films such as Son of Man and Color of the Cross, which have black actors playing Jesus, I long for the day that a Jewish / Middle Eastern actor plays him. I am amazed that no-one has done this yet. Of course Carl Dreyer spent 16 years trying to make a film about the Jewish Jesus. (There is an interesting Variety article on this). It seems strange that so long after that project failed we are still awaiting another one - despite the frequent aspirations to realism that Jesus film directors routinely trot out. Anyway, hopefully this will be the first film to use someone from Jesus' part of the world to take on the role.

1 - "Al Azhar objects to Egyptian-made Jesus movie", Middle Eastern Times, International Edition. March 20, 2006
2 - "Egypt: Muslims Oppose Planned Film On Jesus" - AllAfrica.com