Stephen's Test of Faith

The filmmakers who made this short film definitely had good intentions, but the film itself is very flawed. It's about a boy named Stephen who is bullied by classmates for being a Christian. That night he has a dream where he meets St. Stephen, the first martyr of Christianity. St. Stephen takes Stephen on a journey through the various parts of history where he meets other martyrs, including William Tyndale.

Unfortunately, the film was really heavy handed. I've heard the term Catholic guilt but this film was made by Evangelical Protestants and because of the heavy handedness of the film I now know there is such a thing as Evangelical Protestant guilt. Some of the acting was bad. Though the boy who played Stephen and the actor who played St. Stephen were pretty good.

There are some good films about martyrs, such as BECKET, A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS, ROMERO, OF GODS AND MEN, and SILENCE. There was also a reasonably good film about the Lutheran minsiter, theologian, and martyr Dietricch Bonhoffer titled BONHOFFER: AGENT OF GRACE. See those films instead.

I am a bit skeptical when it comes to visions, but Stephen's vision of the real Stephen is obviously not being sold as something that indeed occurred. Not to say that visions cannot occur anymore, which would be far from the biblical truth. But we all know how much abuse had been done.

This being said, we see a great idea behind the movie, to have the boy go in his dream through a quick time travel throughout Christian history. A low-budget movie, but well-made and without any expectation for more. It fulfilled its purpose in a wonderful way, to educate both children and adults about our history, and not to repeat (or at least to a lesser degree) the endless accounts of Christians going on a holiday trip to Rome and coming back with a big smile, knowing little about what place they had been.

This movie did probably a more important job than many other lengthy movies and dozens of books written without discernment and watering down the boundaries of the church.

It is very important in our times of increasing ecumenism, when we are about to forget the past of the 'church' and think that everything is at peace, just right before the other side will show one day its ugly face again.

It was one of the first director's films. I think is OK. What i like is the acting of stephen boy and martyr.

Improvements are some to count 1-the timeline is presented in a harsh manner 2-they added too many epochs in the film making it look confusing 3-just showing stephen the martyr and the speech he gave before being stonned would have been enough

overall is an interesting quick watch.

The first temptation is to define it as modest film. And, no doubts, it is it. But its target is precise, the acting of two Stephen is decent, the trip and solution of dream are fair, the trip across delicate moments of Christian history is a good exercise to remind or present. So, not memorable, but real accesible for clear message , for support the faith, for bullying scenes and their new meaning and for the story about grandfather and his Bible.

So, just nice sketch, correct scene by scene. Maybe, useful, to.