Interview with Matthias Luthardt, director of „Jesus loves You“
You have dealt with Evangelicalism more than once: how come did you get interested in this subject?
These last years, there is a great tendency in Europe to turn back to spirituality and religiosity, especially among young people looking for values and references. This phenomenon interests me. My family belgons to the mainstream Protestantism : I was baptized and confirmed. Nevertheless, religion has never been an answer to my questions, even if my thoughts and behaviours are strongly shaped by my Christian roots.
Meeting the Evangelicals forced me to challenge my traditional protestant vision of the world.
Is there a border between belief, ideology, and illusion? When can a believer fall into irrrational?
What were the challenges during the shooting?
Faith his something really personal, especially in our societies, where individualism is written with capital letters and where religious freedom is protected by the constitution! The devotee willpower of our protagonists to convert football fans has first amazed me: I thought it was mission impossible. The point was : when does a conversion begins, how can the missionaries consider they succeed? Actually we asked ourselves the same question as the public will at watching the documentary: how far can the camera goes in recording the privacy of the protagonists? Eventually the latter remained really quiet. And according to them, ther is no mission impossible…
Did you already know the protagonists? How? And why these four?
Cameraman Lukas Schmid and I met Gershom Sikaala at a preparatory meeting before the World Cup. He was totally restless, on the inside as well as the outside. He used to answer : „I am proceeding“, as we were asking him what was he doing. We were really curious to find out how he would deal with atheists and sceptics in germany, as he had previously been a missionary in Africa and India. Gershom was really a personal incarnation of African beliefs in supernatural forces and miraculous healings. It was really moving to observe his way of standing in front of European eggheads. His sense of humour and positive thinking always helped him to deal with it.
Did the protagonists try to convert you too?
Of course, that was no surprise. Especially since every person „converted“ means a step toward paradise for the „converter“… But all evangelicals are not good missionaries, in terms of relevance, skills or ingenuity, … We tried to make them understand quickly that we were there as observers, that we took them seriously and that the public would make up its own mind.