Sundance Epiphanies by Dick Staub

PARK CITY, Utah (RNS)

The Sundance Film Festival facilitates epiphanies. I know because I’ve been here only one day and I can already feel, in the words of Carole King, the earth move under my feet and the sky tumbling down, all because of four simple little student films.

An epiphany is a sort of hit-you-over-the-head moment, a “sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something,” is how the dictionary puts it. Usually it’s “initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.”

In each of these low-budget films, the central character faces a life-changing situation that triggers an epiphany.

“On the Road to Tel-Aviv,” by Israeli Khen Shalem (Florida State University/Tel-Aviv University), was inspired by a true story of passengers boarding a bus to Tel-Aviv who balked at sharing the ride with a Palestinian woman they believed might be a terrorist. If you were an Israeli Jew, would you board a bus with an Arab woman carrying a gym bag?

“Kavi,” by Gregg Helvey (USC), tells the story of an Indian boy forced to work as a modern-day slave in a brick kiln. He must choose to either accept what he’s always been told, or fight for a different life. Did you know there are more people enslaved today then during all the years of the African slave trade combined?

“Desert Wedding,” by Alexandra Fisher (UCLA), tells the story of a pampered bride who is inconvenienced by tragedy on her perfectly planned wedding day. If you’ve ever been disturbed by the superficiality of reality TV shows featuring brides planning the perfect, extravagant, expensive wedding, this one’s for you.

Oscar Bucher’s “Waiting for a Train: The Toshio Hirano Story” is the engaging, humorous and heartfelt true story of Japanese emigrant, Toshio Hirano, whose young life was transformed when he heard Jimmy Rodgers singing “Waiting for a Train.” He buys a guitar, travels to America, rides a bike through Appalachia and spends the rest of his life singing country music.

Can the viewer of a film about a character experiencing an epiphany, experience a radical epiphany? Can viewing a film change a life the way Toshio Hirano’s life was changed by listening to a recording of Jimmy Rodgers?

It seems a lot of people believe so and some of them are encouraging young filmmakers to focus their creative efforts on making meaningful films that deal with the themes of redemption, dignity, tolerance, equality, diversity, hope and triumph of the human spirit.

All four films were winners at the Angelus Film Festival, a student film festival that honors budding filmmakers who explore and respect the dignity of the human person. Angelus is part of Family Theater Productions led by Father Willy Raymond and is directed by Monika Moreno.

Hollywood based Family Theater has produced more than 800 radio programs and 83 TV specials have featured the likes of Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda, Rosalind Russell, Jack Benny, Barbara Stanwyck, Helen Hayes, Ronald Reagan and Shirley Temple.

Family Theater Productions and Angelus know talent when they see it: these are the same people who gave James Dean his first acting credit (in 1951’s “Hill Number One”) and George Lucas his first crew job, in a 1963 film (”The Soldier”) that also starred a very young William Shatner.

Which Hollywood media mogul founded Family Theater Productions? It was actually a poor Irish Catholic priest, the Rev. Patrick Peyton, who came to the U.S. in 1928 and was ordained a Holy Cross priest in 1941. Even without any experience in show business, Peyton became a media pioneer by his vision — and by recruiting the best writers and actors in Hollywood to entertain, inspire and inform families with alternative, yet mainstream, programming.

The four films were shown this year at an “off-Sundance” (think “off-Broadway”) mini-festival called WINDRIDER sponsored by Priddy Brothers Entertainment that brings together theology students and aspiring filmmakers who all share the vision of creating artistically excellent films to help humans discover our common ground.

The four films all have something in common, but so do their viewers: they want to see films that inspire epiphanies. The appeal is simple. They’re the kind of movies the world hungers for, because they encourage the human decency we so desperately long for and need.

(Dick Staub is the author of “The Culturally Savvy Christian” and the host of The Kindlings Muse (www.thekindlings.com). His blog can be read at www.dickstaub.com)