Over the following eight years I searched out just about every character study I could lay my hands on, convinced that the answers to life and happiness were contained somewhere within them. A year out in the middle of my university course was mostly spent watching free videos day after day. I decided to note the films down, not knowing quite why, or what I would do with this list. Amongst these were many teen/youth dramas and comedies that only served to reinforce the message that popularity came with attractiveness, and happiness was to be found by dating a beautiful girl.

By my final year at university I was emulating my screen heroes; between my friends and me there wasn’t an attractive girl on campus that we didn’t know. Despite this I was extremely insecure; the dates rarely got past the first one, and when I finally left university leaving my ‘dream’ life behind, the reality of the true emptiness of my life was obvious. Though I couldn’t see it at the time, too many of these films and their messages were hindering, rather than helping me.

The Lord has a way of bringing good forth from bad, however, and three years ago I started thinking about creating some sort of film website. Originally my plan was just to promote those films I felt passionately about. As time went on, however, I found that psychology was not giving me all the answers I was looking for. A couple of relationships didn’t work out and my life seemed to be going nowhere. Then one day I found myself at an ecumenical barbecue and was challenged to say a simple prayer asking Jesus into my life. Something changed inside me and Jesus slowly guided me back to His Church, and introduced me anew to a personal relationship with Himself.

As I read the Bible from cover to cover for the fi rst time, I couldn’t believe the similarities between some of the Bible stories and the films that I felt so passionately about; the messages were clearly the same. Yet the Bible had the addition of putting the messages of these films in context and helped give me a new perspective and to sort the wheat from the chaff. This added a new dimension to my ideas for a new website. When searching around for a name, I realized that the inspiration was right there - on a sweater that I had owned for years, thus ‘Soul Food Cinema’ was born. Several friends from the charismatic prayer group in London, which I attend, coincidently called “Soul Food”, have even offered to help with the development of the site which is a real blessing and I feel is a sign that the Lord is with me.

One of the main features of the new site will be to allow users to log-in to their own account and leave comments and an overall opinion on one of 1000s of different films. Cinema is so powerful in forming the way people think about all kinds of issues without them even realising it. I want to encourage Christians to start looking at the messages in films more critically and share their views with others. My hope is that this will help to highlight both where films get things right from a Christian point of view (such as promoting good friendships, which many films are good at doing), but equally where the message is ultimately destructive (such as the promotion of casual sexual relationships, which unfortunately too many films are also good at doing). The site also has several lists that provide recommendations for films that have been approved by different Catholic organisations
– including the Vatican itself.

Thus what turned out to be a three month project has now turned into a year-long venture and a search for funding to make the site a full-time venture on an on-going basis. God has blessed me with all I could have asked for but I ask for your prayers to secure adequate funding for the website, and furthermore, that through the medium of the movies, Jesus is able to turn many more hearts, minds and souls to His love for them. (www. soulfoodcinema.com)