Faith-based films in viewers' good books :: Mmegi Online

Generally, when a camera breaks on a film set, the first move is to call the technicians. Not so on Letters to God. When equipment went wrong on that film - a based-on-a-true-story weepie about a cancer-stricken child whose missives to the almighty redeem an alcoholic postman -the drill was: pray first, check the fuses later. But it wasn't just techies falling to their knees. It was religious professionals.

"We had prayer warriors on set every day," says director David Nixon, "people who knew nothing of filmmaking, but who knew how to pray. When I'd yell 'Action', they'd go into action and start praying. They'd pray for the actors. They'd pray for the family of the little boy, who were there every day. And when I'd turn to them and see they were grinning from ear-to-ear, or they were bawling their eyes out, I knew we had something special."

Indeed. On release in the United States in April Letters to God was a shock entry in the box office Top 10. It became the most widely distributed faith film since The Passion of the Christ in 2004. Foreign distribution rights have been sold in territories as far-flung as South Africa, Slovenia and the Middle East, where it's to be retitled Letters to Allah.

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