EUROPE/ITALY - When a film tells the story of mission: the story of cinema of immense historical and religious value produced by early missionaries who documented their activity in the early years of the 20th century

Wednesday, 26 October 2005

Rome (Fides Service) - “Film & Mission: for a history of the missionary film”: a book and DVD rediscover photos of mission pioneers in the early 1920s armed only with makeshift equipment who took pictures of extraordinary historical and religious value. In the Chapel of the Epiphany in the building of Propaganda Fide, on Tuesday 25 October this interesting work was presented to the public by Italy’s National Entertainment Board in the presence of Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, Rev. Dario Vigano Communications officer Italian Bishops’ Conference and Prof. Francesco Casetti director of the Communications Science department at the Catholic University of Milan.
The work, a collection and a commentary on missionary films and documents (on DVD thanks to Nova T), was prepared by Maria Francesca Piredda and aims, as Rev Viganò explained to reconstruct and give organicity to a large amount of filmed material belonging to the 20th century. These works were often shown by returning missionaries in their parishes made into cinemas for the occasion. Images of the people and the countries where they, the missionaries, announced the Gospel of Christ. Cardinal Sepe underlined the missionary animation value of those events, many of which stirred missionary vocations. The material is also of historical and geographical value: like the abundant documentation on the Tierra del Fuego left by the great missionary geographer Salesian Father De Agostini. The great book of mission turns its pages swiftly, photos in black and white, precious testimony of the vitality of mission “ad gentes”, still to be discovered in all their wealth. (M.F.D’A.) (Agenzia Fides 26/10/2005, righe 20, parole 287)


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