Interview with Lilian Franck, director of „Jesus Loves You“
What lead you to shoot a film with evangelicals?
I am an agnostic and my days are busy; nevertheless the question about life always comes up: is there beyond the life? Many people find answers to their questions in religion. I do not, eventough I grew up as the daughter of a pastor.
Robert Cibis, Michaela Kirst and I have already directed two films about Evangelicalism. During the shootings, we heard about their plans for mission at the World Cup. We thought it was really exciting subject for another film and we started investigating.
I consider really important not to reject evangelicals : that woud mean to deny them. The French weekly magazine Le Nouvel Observateur reports that there are yet 500 millions evangelicals on earth. Their influence on US culture and politics is unprecedented. I think this power is kind of a threat for us. I do not share their beliefs. Hence I decided to consider them seriously and observe them sharply in order to define them, to find out how they act and why. This was to me the best way to oppose them as well as to create a debate about evangelicalism.
Which challenges did you face during the editing?
As we shot the film from an observer point of view, we collected a great deal - about 200 hours- of raw material! Three teams were shooting simultaneously. Eventually we had to give up many interesting scenes and that was not easy. Little by little during the editing we made up our mind about what the story in our film would be; from there what we needed became clear. Cody turned out to be the main protagonist, as others were no longer included.
How did you manage to gain the protagonists´ trust?
That was the result of a several-years-long process! Michaela knew Scott as she was doing research in New York. She shot a movie with him. We met the others through contacts inside the evangelical movement. We probably gained their confidence by spending a lot of time with them, by conversing openly with them sincerely. Nevertheless we always tried not to debate with them, in case they would have wanted to leave the production…
Why concretely these four protagonists?
On the one hand, we wanted to represent the three key regions of our film: Germany, Africa, and the USA. On the other hand the four stories matched really well: Tilman, who acts like a second Jesus and ends up talking with a mad guy, who actually appears to speak the same way as Tilman itself! Then the tireless Gershom, willing to evangelize Europe with a method doomed to fail! And the shy Cody, with his mentor Scott; he only wants to be part of the movement, but at then end he appears to have some doubts about evangelical beliefs…
How long did you shoot and with how many people?
Three teams have been working one week before, one week after, and during the world cup.
How long did the post-production last?
About one year. During that time we managed several public screenings. It was useful to have a feedback from the public and to adapt our film according to their criticism.
Are you a believer?
Look at the answer of the first question!