Phelps-Roper is the granddaughter of Fred Phelps, founder of the Westboro Baptist Church known for picketing funerals of U.S. service members.

Since leaving the church, Megan has become an advocate for people and ideas she was once taught to despise Read more

It's showing at the local festival as it moves around the country following screenings in the indigenous section of the Berlin International Film Festival in February and the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival in May and heads to the Melbourne International Film Festival next month. Read more

The NZ premiere of the documentary, sponsored by the Catholic Enquiry Centre, will be shown as part of the Family Banquet Conference next month.

The documentary seeks to explain the fallout of the hippie generation's free-love mindset and the prophetic nature of Humanae Vitae.

Humanae Vitae is Blessed Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical on love, sex and marriage.

The director and narrator of the ninety-minute documentary believes the sexual revolution that followed the introduction of artificial contraception in the 1960s may soon give way to a new and "real sexual revolution" that embraces Natural Family Planning.

"I believe with all my heart there is a rediscovery happening right now of Humanae Vitae," said the director, Daniel diSilva.

The fact that young people are increasingly turning to organic food and natural healthcare choices leads diSilva to believe "we're sitting on the cusp of a revolution of natural family planning," in which married couples use neither drugs nor devices but rather fertility awareness to delay or achieve pregnancy.

The documentary examines the history of the parallel developments of the pill and modern natural family planning framed within the dramatic life story of Alana Newman.

A musician and singer, Newman's life story as a donor-conceived individual searching for her biological father frames the film.

There is a focus on Drs John and Evelyn Billings, the pioneers in the Natural Family Planning movement.

The film also features commentary by more than a dozen Catholic experts including Dr Helen Alvare, Dr Peter Kreeft, and Archbishop Charles Chaput, as well as rarely seen video clips of St Mother Teresa.

The Family Banquet Conference will take place on Saturday, 10 November at St Christopher's Church, 167 Main Rd, Tawa in Wellington. Tickets are available at eventbrite or contact patricia@marriageandfamily.org.nz

Source

• Supplied: marriageandfamily.org.nz Patricia Sison
• sexualrevolutionmovie.com
• thecatholicpost.com
• imdb.com
• Image: Supplied

Francis looks directly into the camera as though he's having a conversation with the audience.

The documentary will be released in the US on 18 May. Read more

Lottie Hedley is a freelance photographer.

They are writing a story about Southland's migrant communities for New Zealand Geographic.

On Good Friday they joined a group taking part in the Stations of the Cross in Lumsden.

This is the seventh time Filipino Catholics from throughout Southland have organised this event.

Before their visit to Lumsden Morris and Hedley had already visited Knapdale, Invercargill.

"The story is about various migrant communities in small-town New Zealand, and especially about the Filipino community in Southland," Morris said.

The theme of the story is the way that migrant communities are changing the face of small towns and rural New Zealand.

"I am seeing how incredibly positive the effect migrant communities are bringing to these towns through the churches and with schools gaining more pupils and students now growing up in a multicultural environment," Morris says.

"This seems like a positive thing to me."

The boom in the Filipino population of Southland is largely driven by working opportunities in dairying, the largest employer in the agricultural sector.

Between 2010/11 and 2014/15 (years to June), an average of 322 temporary work visas were granted each year to Filipinos for work in Southland as dairy farm workers, as registered in the Immigration New Zealand database.

But this is likely to be an undercount since many work visas granted did not have the region of work specified.

Morris has worked a lot for Natural History New Zealand over the last 10 years.

His last big job for them was shooting the Auckland Islands episode of Our Big Blue Backyard.

Another of his documentaries is the feature-length The Sound of Her Guitar, which is the story of New Zealand songwriter Donna Dean and her struggle to escape a life of alcohol and violence to follow her musical dreams.

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• thestar.co.nz
• asianz.org.nz
• Image: stuff.co.nz

The feature-length documentary is about the seismic strengthening of St Mary of the Angels church in central Wellington.

Parish priest Father Barry Scannell, who features in the film, says it "beautifully captures" the scale and challenges of the $9.5 million rebuild.

"The whole project was a great test of faith - never really knowing if it would all work out ... but the end result is just stunning," he said.

He hopes the documentary will help shed a light on the immense amount of work that went on behind the scenes to get the church to the standard it's at today.

"The finished film has turned out to be a remarkably rich documentary which anyone will enjoy - especially Wellingtonians who know of the church and its special place in the capital's history."

The film started out as just a way to document the church-strengthening project.

However, filmmakers Paul Davidson and Barbara Gibb quickly realised there was more to the story.

Now A Test of Faith tells the whole story of just how much of the church was taken apart and replaced with modern materials and innovative engineering.

"Although it was an exercise in challenging architecture and engineering, I knew that the story amongst all that could make a really rich, people-focused documentary," Davidson says.

"The fascinating thing for me was the intertwining relationships of all those working on the site, from the architects and engineers to the labourers down on the ground."

Proceeds from the gala, which had a price tag of $100.00 per ticket, will help fund completion of unfinished work on the church crypt, choir room and grounds.

Source

• Stuff
• Image: Stuff

Hollie Fifer's film The Opposition won the Grand Prize at the International Pacific Documentary Film Festival, FIFO, in French Polynesia, in February.

The documentary is about the struggle to stop the eviction of 3,000 people from a decades-old squatter community to make way for an Australian-backed property development that promised a hotel, marina and exhibition centre.

Bulldozers were used to clear a waterfront residential area in Papua New Guinea's(PNG) capital Port Moresby and make space for the development

However Australian property developer, Paga Hill Development Company (PHDC), was given a 99 year lease on the land where many families had been living for four generations.

Selected to screen at DocEdge last year, The Opposition, was pulled at the last minute because of a court challenge.

The documentary was cleared for international release in July.

Fifer was in PNG in 2012 as a student filmmaker. She made contact with Dame Carol Kidu, the Australian-born PNG MP; she was the only woman in parliament and had became leader of the opposition.

While they were talking, Kidu suddenly got a phone call alerting her to the fact that demolition of Paga Hill was underway.

Fifer went with Kidu and filmed what happened: houses being demolished, distressed people being pushed around by police.

Kidu's was arrested as she protested against what was taking place.

Subsequently Kidu quit parliament; she became a consultant for PHDC and her relationship with the community and the filmmakers began to change.

She took legal action against the film. Her case was rejected.

Source

• scoop.co,nz
• theaustralian.com.au
• smh.com.au

He thought the documentary aire late last month A Woman's Place, which aired in late July, "accurately portrayed" parts of the community, but did not ask the hard questions.

He said good and bad things and people existed in all communities, but the bad seemed to be the focus of many of the Gloriavale documentaries and media coverage.

Seventeen months after leaving Gloriavale South Canterbury dairy farmer James Ben Canaan gave his first face-to-face interview on Wednesday.

Canaan admitted he had been reluctant to speak out for fear of his experience being wrongfully portrayed.

However, he changed his mind in the hope sharing his story might help New Zealanders understand the "real" Gloriavale.

While he was concerned the community had been portrayed incorrectly about abuse he was disappointed the past sexual abuse allegations were not discussed.

He said child abuse was not condoned in Gloriavale at all. Howver he was disappointed the documentary did not ask questions about why the community was not informed that Gloriavale leader Hopeful Christian, was convicted of indecent assault in the mid 1990s.

"99 per cent of Gloriavale members believe those things never happened", he said.

"If the people of Gloriavale knew the truth about the allegations, the place would fall apart,"

The leaders held up on a pedestal with high regard "would fall to pieces".

"There were other sides of life that weren't touched".

A lot of the members were happy with life, but he knew of people "who aren't happy there, too".

However, this perspective would not come out as people who were unhappy would not be interviewed, he said.

"Everything done is put past the leaders for approval."

But there were a lot of good things in the community, he said.

"Gloriavale is a very stress-free life. Everything is well organised and everyone looks after each other. "

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• Image: stuff.co.nz

The Secret Letters of Pope John Paul II was due to be aired on Monday on the BBC's Panorama programme.

Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, a Polish-born American philosopher, worked on a translation of one of John Paul's books.

The project is said to have sparked a four-year personal correspondence and speculation that the two may have fallen in love.

But a Vatican official said it is known that John Paul was friendly with Tymieniecka and with another Polish woman, Wanda Poltawska, with whom he consulted.

A source described the documentary's content as being "more smoke than fire".

The BBC programme was not expected to allege that either woman had a physical relationship with John Paul II.

Continue reading

Award-winning director and co-producer Kim Webby says she wanted to show all sides of Tame Iti.

"I knew him differently. I knew him as a grandfather and as a father, as a marae committee chairman, you know, a leader in his community." Continue reading

The footage shot at Corpus Christi High RC School in Cardiff aimed to show what it is like walking in the shoes of a bullied child.

The filming was done for a future TV programme on bullying.

A hidden camera was fitted to the backpack of an unnamed schoolgirl - aged 12 to 13 - by Fresh One Productions, which is owned by Jamie Oliver.

A spokesman for ITV and Fresh One Productions said the pupil approached the production company after an advertisement was placed online.

The girl's mother - in a statement through ITV - said: "The decision to enter into this was not taken lightly.

"My child was at the point where she just couldn't take any more and I had done everything I could as a parent.

"She has been let down time after time and it felt like there was nowhere for us to go. This was the very last resort for both of us."

School personnel only learned about the filming when they were shown '"very emotional" footage of bullying and were told it would be screened on ITV.

The principal and governors of the Catholic school have said they are now seeking legal action against the programme makers for covertly filming pupils without permission from the school or other parents.

School spokespeople said bullying is condemned "in the strongest terms and we have a robust anti-bullying policy in place".

Mr Oliver's production company only wrote a letter to parents after filming had finished.

Every child would have their faces blurred and voices scrambled to protect their identities.

No date has been fixed for the broadcast as yet, and it is unclear if it will go ahead now the school has been identified.

The girl who did the filming was pleased the footage had been seen at a local "resolution meeting" and that she would be believed.

A similar programme aired in The Netherlands.

Sources

• Daily Mail
• South Wales Evening Post
• Image: Entrepreneur.com

On "Pope Francis - The Sinner", Cardinal Raymond Burke says that since Pope Francis's election two years ago, "there really just is growing confusion about what the Church teaches".

When Cardinal Burke's term as prefect of the Apostolic Signatura came to an end, Pope Francis did not reappoint him.

Instead, Cardinal Burke was given a largely ceremonial role with the Order of Malta.

According to the Irish Times, the documentary will also feature former president of Ireland Mary McAleese saying that while she likes Pope Francis, she feels he just doesn't get women.

"There's a blind side here . . . that leaves good men . . . like Francis still carrying a residual element of misogyny that closes them off . . .," she says.

The Pope's Argentinean biographer Elisabetta Pique tells the programme "he was almost hated by some Jesuits . . ." there.

This is a view echoed by Fr Michael Petty who says "he provoked tremendous division" when he was (Jesuit) provincial in Argentina.

The former Superior General of the Dominicans Fr Timothy Radcliffe however believes that the Pope trusts in the Holy Spirit.

"A very important part of Pope Francis' spirituality is daring not to be in control," he said.

In an address earlier this month in England, Cardinal Burke said that last year's synod on the family, called by Pope Francis, was "confused and erroneous" in that it sought to condone contraception, gay relationships and "living in a public state of adultery".

Cardinal Burke said "confusion about the meaning of human sexuality" had led to breakdown of the family, corruption of children and "ultimately, self-destruction".

During the address, which ran to 25 pages but did not mention Pope Francis, he criticised the report that was issued at the midpoint of the synod, which advocated using more welcoming language around homosexuality.

Cardinal Burke called this report "a manifesto, a kind of incitement to a new approach to fundamental issues of human sexuality in the Church".

Sources

• The Irish Times
• The Tablet
• Image: Catholic News Agency

Movie-goers who saw "Meet the Mormons" were invited to make a gold coin donation for Caritas.

Proceeds were handed over to Catholic Church representatives at a Latter Day Saints facility in Manukau on February 24.

The film was intended to explain who the Mormons are, not to proselytise.

Elder S. Gifford Nielsen said: "The relationship with our friends from the Catholic Church is getting stronger."

Caritas chief executive Julianne Hickey said: "This experience has enhanced my understanding of what we share and what we have in common."

Continue reading

Packer's film Gloriavale has won Best Documentary at the 2012 Chicago CineYouth International Student Film Festival and will be shown at the Chicago International Film Festival in October.

Packer, 20, and fellow Christchurch Polytechnic Institue of Technology New Zealand Broadcasting School students Shani Annand-Baron and Nathan Joe spent three days filming at Gloriavale, Haupiri.

Continue reading