Created in 1979, the Clermont-Ferrand International Festival (France) is the most important short film festival in the world. Nathan Douglas managed to get his short film (about seven minutes long) to be one of the 70 films selected to participate among more than 8,000 films from different countries. For him it is a dream come true. His film, entitled "Son in the Barbershop" (Hijo en la peluquería), is about a young man who overhears a telephone conversation between a divorced father and his son in the barbershop where he is having his hair cut. This young filmmaker showed his short film for the first time in March 2015, at the congress. Univ of Rome. He then went on to several North American festivals before arriving at the Clermont-Ferrand festival. It was a unique experience, although he was a bit shocked by the commercial side of the event.
Nathan Douglas was born in the Canadian province of Ontario and lives in British Columbia. He studied Film at the Simon Fraser Universitywhere I met him. He works in his alma mater making educational documentaries. He also produces short films on his own. After all, some of us in Vancouver pride ourselves on living in the Hollywood North because of the amount of filming that takes place here. Nathan was baptized in a Protestant community shortly after his birth. After ten years of seeking God he joined the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil in 2013. There were four factors that greatly influenced his conversion: "My work, which made me more sensitive to art and beauty as ways to experience God's love; Eucharistic adoration; a Catholic friend who lovingly and persistently challenged me; and a week I spent in a Benedictine monastery (near Vancouver) that opened my heart to the beauty of the liturgy."
"What is the main purpose of cinema?", I ask him. According to Nathan, it is the same as that of all true art: "To reflect the beauty of Christ in a way that can be understood through the senses. There are things that words cannot say. I think film can lead you to an experience of love. Film can overcome our resistance by reminding us how much we are worth as children of God."
Nathan explains that the influential film critic and film theorist (as well as Catholic) André Bazin (who lived from 1918 to 1958), wrote that cinema, more than any other art, is inextricably linked to love. For André Bazin "the camera is like an omniscient universal eye that gives us an idea of how God sees. It prepares us to accept the undeserved understanding of God himself. A truly Catholic cinema should embrace the viewer with the mysterious love of God and man, not hammer him with messages.".
He affirms that cinema is a gift from God, a rare fruit of modernity, and that Catholics should dialogue with avant-garde cinema. "Often, avant-garde art disrupts notions of beauty and order. But these works often represent a quest. In modern life there is constant abstraction and movement, and many of these films struggle with this challenge. Cinema is not just for entertainment; that is a trap of consumerist society. The films you see out there don't usually change people's lives; they are produced for the masses. Many avant-garde artists understand this, even if they also oppose institutions like the Church. We can work side by side with them in their work against injustice.".
Nathan sees in the beauty of art and in the witness of the saints the two pillars of conversion: "I believe that holiness and art are the two greatest evangelizing voices the Church possesses. And film brings these two voices together when it shows us lives that seek truth and love.".
Montreal
