Believers Give Thumbs Up to Film Inspired by Columbine Victim
by Allie Martin and Jenni Parker
June 16, 2005
(AgapePress) - A Christian production company is taking part in a nationwide online short film competition hosted by one of the Internet's most popular websites.This month the Amazon.com website, known to many as "the World's Largest Bookstore," is featuring five finalists in its "Amazon Theater Tribeca Film Festival Short Film Competition." From May 25 through June 23, Amazon customers have been invited to view and judge the five finalist films, each featured for six days, during which time the entries are rated by the customers viewing them. (Click here to view and then rate the film -- link not effective after June 17)
This week a short documentary called "Rachel's Challenge -- The Battle Between Good and Evil" is the featured film on the Amazon site. The subject of the seven-minute film is Rachel Scott, a Christian teenager who was killed during the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, after refusing at gunpoint to deny her faith in God.
Jon Lindren is owner of ViaMedia, the Texas-based video production company that produced the film. He is encouraging Christians and others moved by Rachel's story to visit the site and cast a vote for the documentary, which was made by a filmmaker who says he was "touched by the battle waged by Rachel Scott to do good in the world."
The film "Rachel's Challenge" contains both unscripted and scripted dialogue as well as recreations of the incidents leading up to Scott's death. The students in the recreations are all novice actors with little experience in acting.
The filmmaker submitting the highest-rated film in the Short Film Competition will win a grand prize worth $50,000. However, Lindgren says the ongoing contest has already given ViaMedia greater exposure to secular audiences, a valuable reward in itself. But although "Rachel's Challenge" has been well received, he admits that online responses to the film have been mixed.
"We have found that there is an extreme contrast in the voting," the production company owner says. "It's either five stars or it's one star." And the pattern is by no means random, he points out.
"The story mentions God," Lindgren says, "and it seems that those comments we've received in the voting that are five stars [come from viewers that] have some form of belief in God, and the ones that [gave the film] no stars or one star have no belief in God."
Ultimately, the head of ViaMedia says he believes a wide audience exists "out there" that wants to hear stories that involve Christians and tell stories about faith and the love of God, and the ever growing number of positive ratings for 'Rachel's Challenge" are already bearing this out.
"And so, really," Lindren adds, "the contest for me represents proof and evidence that America is ready for moral programming." Voting for "Rachel's Challenge" closes Friday, June 17.
