After the apparent usefulness of collecting a load of Christmas ‘short films’ together in one place, I figured I’d try and do the same for Easter. Turns out that’s harder to do – because there’s simply less of them – that is, unless you want countless shots of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ set to everything from Coldplay to Bach.
So, here’s a handful of short films that have caught my attention over the last few weeks, which I reckon are worthy of sharing with people/using at events.
1. Egg
Any video that manages to begin with the line “Consider the egg…” and still stays classy is clearly a good egg, ahem. Dave Crofts cleverly and gently uses this object, that is so often bound up with defining Easter, as a provoking picture of bigger things.
2. Bread of Heaven
Glen Scrivener comes up with the goods again, this time using a child’s voice and animation styled on a child’s felt-tip drawings, following the theme of Passover and Jesus’ body being broken for us. Again, Glen’s ability to paint the Bible’ grand-narrative and re-set Jesus’ death and resurrection within its bigger story is a clear strength.
4&5. Raised?
This book, Raised?, has the subtitle “Finding Jesus by doubting the resurrection”, and looks set to be a great resource.
Here’s the trailer:
The team behind Raised? have also put together a four-part mini-film telling the story of some individuals who struggled with the idea of the resurrection and follows how they wrestled with these. The first-part, Doubt, is below:
5. What do you think Easter is all about?
UCCF have put together this simple two-minute video, using pictures to accompany someone probing the question as to what Easter is about, before putting forward some of the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection.
I’m sure there’s some other great ones out there – please,m do share them in the comments below!
