Isaiah 9: 1-4         1 Cor 1: 10-18     Matt 4: 120-23   

To the surprise of many, a religious film (or rather, a film with a clear religious topic) won one of the top awards at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. It was a surprise because the common wisdom is that religion not only doesn’t get an audience (the primary function of film-making) but worse, it stands a high chance of courting the kind of controversy that kills rather than builds attendance. Set that film in the limited confines of a monastery populated with 7 celibate and mainly elderly men and little opportunity for car chases, love interest or condemnatory behaviour – I’d love to have seen the faces when the producers first tried to pitch that one! Nevertheless – it got made. And the result is the beautifully-filmed and emotionally-charged “Of Gods And Men”.