The stations of Christ's life are segmented into a series of performative tableaux.
A grandfather tells his granddaughter about the origin of the name Hemelbloemetje: Peter once dropped the key of the gate of heaven in his sleep. At the place where he fell to the earth, Celestial flowers grew.
The life of Jesus is played out in tableaux shot in the Holy Land.
During the latter years of the reign of the tyrannical Roman emperor Nero, Marcus Vinicius, one of Nero's officers, falls in love with a young Christian named Lygia, attempting to enslave her. Lygia's protector, the noble and burly Ursus, works to save her from Vinicius' clutches. Pursuing Lygia, Vinicius finds himself at a catacomb prayer meeting led by the apostle Peter and finds his conscience stirring-- just as Nero orders Rome burned. A landmark in epic film, Enrico Guazzoni’s grand-scale masterpiece laid the foundations for what colossal Italian spectacles would become. The film had tremendous influence on Giovanni Pastrone’s Cabiria (1914) and D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916).
In "Fabiola" (1918) Herr Guarzzoni moved from the earliest days of Christianity when the new faith was struggling to just survive to a later period in the Roman Empire when the religion was a major force and attempting to win over Rome.
Old Jerusalem: Matathias, spiteful over his lover's illness, spits on Jesus along the road to Calvary, and is cursed to live endlessly until His return. The Crusades, 1150: Matathias, now an anonymous knight, competes for glory in combat and for the wife of a soldier. Palermo, 1290: Matteos Battadios witnesses the death of his young son, leading to conflict with his wife over whether to take comfort in Christianity. Seville, 1560: Dr Matteos Battadios dedicates himself to the treatment and comfort of the poor, but his life and work are endangered by the arrival of the Spanish Inquisition.
In this action-filled spectacle set in ancient Pompeii, a blacksmith becomes a Roman gladiator, though his rise to wealth and power is jeopardized by his son's Christianity and the eruption of Vesuvius.
The star-crossed desert romance of a cloistered woman and a renegade monk.
The life of Saint Benedict, the founder of Western Monasticism.
In ancient Rome a love story blossoms between Fabiola, daughter of a senator, and Rhual, a Gallic gladiator. After Fabiola's father is killed, the Romans blame the Christians and the persecution begins. Rhual confesses to being a Christian, is accused of the murder and sentenced to fight to the death in the arena.
When strongman Samson rejects the love of the beautiful Philistine woman Delilah, she seeks vengeance that brings horrible consequences they both regret.
After fierce Roman commander Marcus Vinicius becomes infatuated with beautiful Christian hostage Lygia, he begins to question the tyrannical leadership of the despotic emperor Nero.
The historic, original, live airing of what would become an annual Christmas tradition throughout the 1950s, this opera tells the story of Amahl, a crippled shepherd boy, and his destitute mother, who provide temporary shelter to three men who are following a star to the newly-born Christ child.
A biopic of Martin Luther, covering his life between 1505 and 1530, and the birth of the Protestant Reformation movement.
Marcellus is a tribune in the time of Christ. He is in charge of the group that is assigned to crucify Jesus. Drunk, he wins Jesus' homespun robe after the crucifixion. He is tormented by nightmares and delusions after the event. Hoping to find a way to live with what he has done, and still not believing in Jesus, he returns to Palestine to try and learn what he can of the man he killed.
Roman centurion Marcian is captured by Attila the Hun en route to Constantinople, but escapes. On arrival, he finds the eastern Roman emperor Theodosius plotting with Attila to look the other way while the latter marches against Rome. But Marcian gains the favor of Pulcheria, lovely sister of Theodosius, who favors a united Empire.
Escaping death, a Hebrew infant is raised in a royal household to become a prince. Upon discovery of his true heritage, Moses embarks on a personal quest to reclaim his destiny as the leader and liberator of the Hebrew people.
The Happy Island looks at the work of the London Missionary Society on Gemo (now Hanudamua) Island in Port Moresby harbour, Papua New Guinea, which from 1937-1974 treated people who suffered from infectious diseases, mainly leprosy and tuberculosis. The film offers insight into the attitudes and practices of Christian missionaries of that time. Despite the colonial paternalism that underpins the Missionary Society’s model of care, the film tells the story of a happy, active community, as it follows the lives of the patients, their families and the dedicated staff, all of whom live, work and socialise on the island together.
In 25 AD, Judah Ben-Hur, a Jew in ancient Judea, opposes the occupying Roman empire. Falsely accused by a Roman childhood friend-turned-overlord of trying to kill the Roman governor, he is put into slavery and his mother and sister are taken away as prisoners.
A teenage girl and her boyfriend struggle with their love for one another, until an encounter with the girl's abusive father leads to the young couple to question the existence of goodness in life.