Mary, Mother of Christ

Release Date: (Theaters) December 2013

COMPANY

Aloe Entertainment

DISTRIBUTION

Lionsgate, Noori Pictures

CAST

Julia Ormond … Elizabeth
Odeya Rush … Mary
Ben Kingsley … King Herod
Gary Oldman … Lucifer
Peter O’Toole … Symeon
Jay Willick … Rabbi
Kellan Lutz … The Angel Gabriel
Andy Garcia … Joachim

Film Synopsis:

This film is considered the biblical prequel to the story of “The Passion of The Christ”.

Under the reign of terror of Herod the Great and against all odds, Mary and Joseph survive as young parents in one of the most treacherous times in history. From Mary’s youth to her struggles as a young mother caring for her child, Jesus, up to the age of four years old. We will peer into Mary’s life at ages 8, 15, 19 and 27. (Written by Aloe Entertainment)

We are determined to make the familiar story new to our eyes and our hearts. It’s as if in the past we were taught to love this family, rather than sharing their lives in big and small ways and letting a natural empathy develop. One of the visual leitmotifs we are intent on is seeing the tiny fragile element of Mary who is essentially up against doubters who want to stone her to death, a fallen angel trying to harness all his persuasive power to try and get her to doubt her faith, and a mad King named Herod who will unleash rivers of blood in his intent in finding and killing her son. We must think of Mary as this very young, very vulnerable warrior. For the first time we will see how she has to stand on her own to protect her assignment in a way that reflects the legendary courage mothers are known for protecting their own.

We know what happened, we know the history, but there has not been a movie yet that brings us close to the story of a humble girl who was chosen to give birth to a Being that would change this world’s history; to live with her through her struggle of survival and the choices she had to make in order to protect and bring this child to life.

For whatever myriad reasons, none of the often-told cinematic portrayals of the birth of Christ really features Mary as the extraordinary, pivotal, indispensable center of the majestic drama. Certainly she has been recognized for her saintliness and her devotion to God and the mission he has chosen for her. What has been less focused on is the reality of Mary as a young girl of very modest means, who before a certain point in her young life is totally unprepared as to what her destiny is to be.

The story of Mary is one that has never been told to a wide global audience. Mary’s humanity transformed into the realm of the divine. Artistic representations of Mary usually depict her as a mature woman, comfortable and experienced in her raising of an infant. What we must assume, despite relatively little writing of the period, is that Mary was a young village girl who must have suffered the human burdens and delighted in the sublime pleasures of bringing up a child, particularly this child touched by godliness, yet human as any other.

One of the great triumphs of the script is Joseph coming to turns with the truth that the real engine of faith is love. Though what transpires is beyond his ability to literally understand, it is the power of his love for Mary and the fact that Mary prayed so intensely that Joseph be her companion that they come together in a unique love bond that is essential to the raising of the child.

The ticking clock rhythm and pace to this epic journey, in a vibrant canvas of great scope, is the key. The film will be shot wide screen to capture the vast landscapes and take the audience into these times, not as a distant period picture, but as if this story would be happening in the immediacy of the present.

Audiences should come out of movie theaters feeling they have come to know a part of history they thought they knew, but have understood and experienced now in a much more immediate and human way.

We will come to know these characters in a new and more accessible way that draws us to them as flesh and blood in their own right, not just depending on what we know of them as historically religious figures. There will be a reality to the violence within mainstream standards, but the ideas of which, (especially the slaughter of the innocents) are anything but familiar. We will FEEL the horror, FEEL the joy and suffer the threat of the unknown, along with the family.

The ending will give us a grand feeling of who this special boy has come to this world, and of the heroic struggle this mother and father have gone through with Faith as their ally.

The film will be visually beautiful with a studied re-imagination of every element including color palette from hair to costume to make-up from that which has come before. With historical documentation always at our side, I want to make that which we have never seen before. To show a side of the world’s most familiar story, which humanizes the biblical characters and brings us closer to understanding how love truly is the underpinning of faith. By the end of the film, if we haven’t before, we will come to believe and be inspired by these human examples.
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