Valencia, in Spain, was the location for a gathering in July attended by 24 participants alongside 11 professional filmmakers and creatives.

The two-week course included training in screenwriting, directing, cinematography, lighting, sound, pre-production, editing, distribution, social media and artificial intelligence.

All Evangelical Focus news and opinion, on your WhatsApp

Teams were formed which “developed a story, prepared their production, went out to film and saw their project through to the final edit”. The aim was to “learn by doing” and to use the media “to share God’s love in a relevant and creative way”.

The trainers, many of whom came from the US, are affiliated with the Jesus Film Project, an international ministry with decades of experience that already has multimedia material in over 2,000 languages.

Nacho Marqués, director of Ágape España, whose offices hosted the course, explained to Evangelical Focus that “each project begins by understanding the real struggles and issues facing their cities, in order to communicate—creatively via social media and digital platforms—the message of the Gospel as an agent of transformation, healing and restoration”.

Although large-scale filmmaking requires greater planning and resources, much of the content tested were “documentaries, interviews and short-form content (reels)”.

Jonas Sanz: “Local production contextualised for Europe”

For Jonas Sanz, Global Media and Content Strategy Director for the Jesus Film Project, “Valencia was particularly valuable because it brought together participants from different European countries and contexts, enabling us not only to learn together, but also to build relationships and explore new possibilities for collaboration and contextually appropriate production in Europe”.

“Internationally, one of our main priorities is to develop local creative capacity,” he explained to Evangelical Focus.

“We do not simply seek to produce content from abroad and translate it for different countries, but rather to invest in people who have a deep understanding of their own culture, language and context, and to equip them to create stories that connect authentically with the audiences they wish to reach”.

Reaching a digitally native, non-believing audience

Agape Film Academy is one of several initiatives led by Christian organisations aimed at enhancing the presence of Christian messages in the formats most widely consumed by Generation Z and Generation Alpha, although the project’s track record includes bringing films about Jesus to older age groups in parts of the world with limited digital access.

Today, in contexts such as Europe, explains Nacho Marqués, “multimedia content is the native language of the digital environment, a space where people of all ideologies, lifestyles and worldviews converge”.

“When communicating the message to a non-Christian audience, audiovisual formats allow us to break down cultural barriers, foster empathy through real-life stories and capture attention in a matter of seconds”, he says.

“Social media is the most direct and inclusive meeting point for the mission”.