For the upcoming film, No Greater Love, we interviewed Executive Producer/Director Russ Rice and Brad Silverman. No Greater Love releases January 19th.
Russ and Brad, tell us about the film.
The story of No Greater Love is this: we have two lifelong sweethearts, best friends from the time they were kids. They grew up together through college, got married young and they begin a perfect happily-ever-after storybook life.
But as we so often find, marriage isn’t always as easy as we make it out to be. These two start off okay, but in a few years things get a little rocky — and rockier — and then things really begin to fall apart. Eventually the unthinkable happens: She abandons her husband and infant son and vanishes; she is presumed dead.
Ten years later is where the movie picks up. Jeff, the husband, is now ready to finally move on with his life…
We should stop here before we give the story away. The DVD is available on January 19th and many churches are showing the film…
Yes. We felt like there was a greater possibility to get this film in front of more audiences if we went directly to the churches. So we’re booking churches all over America right now to show the film in 2010. We’re doing a huge push for Marriage Week, over Valentines Day.
Currently, 500 churches — or 500 groups — have committed to show No Greater Love. We’re hoping to get into about 5,000 churches this year.
Churches can sign-up at proverbscinema.com.
And there is a 90-day devotional from Thomas Nelson…
Yes, it should be out the end of February.
I liked the film. My wife and I were interrupted halfway through. When we returned home that night the first thing she said to me was, Let’s finish watching that movie! So it held our attention.
If you’re like me, you view Christian films with a sharp eye, comparing to the Hollywood standard — the films we see every day. This was very well made. The editing was tight; the acting was good, with a high production quality. You guys did a nice job. You did a lot with your budget.
Thanks. That was important to us. We were on a very, very low budget, but all along we wanted to maintain the best quality and maximum impact. We didn’t want the view that the Christian market should support this because it’s Christian, even though it might not be the best we could have done.
We’re trying to make the best product we can, at the lowest price and still produce something that will impact people — a film that that folks won’t be embarrassed to invite a non-believing neighbor or friend to.
Employing professional actors made a significant difference.
Brad: Yes, absolutely. We didn’t want to compromise in that area.
Anthony “Tony” Tyler who plays the lead is a solid believer. We actually go to the same church.
Jay Underwood, who plays his friend, was a workhorse professional actor for 20 years. But, then, a few years ago he was called to fulltime ministry. He is actually a pastor in Northern California. We flew him out and he would shoot Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and then we would fly him back to preach on Sundays. We pulled him out of a temporary retirement.
What is the most meaningful comment/feedback that you received from the film screenings?
Brad: We’ve been overwhelmed, Jim, in the response that we’ve been getting on this film from ages 12 to 80 — men and women both. It wasn’t just the women who told us how moved they were, but it was the men who were brought to tears and felt personally challenged to be a better man.
Russ: It’s incredible to see these men broken. If one guy or one lady gets impacted to live out a more godly life, then that’s worth every cent of making the film. And, if God sees fit to use it in an evangelistic way, as a tool for somebody to come to salvation, that is so incredible to us.
We’ve had opportunities to follow up with unbelievers and with believers alike. But we really wanted to minister to the Body of Christ, which in turn will hopefully give them the strength and the vigor and the excitement to go out there and proclaim Christ with a passion to an unreconciled world and really speak into marriages of neighbors and friends.
· Want to show No Greater Love at your church? click here
· Read more at www.NoGreaterLoveTheMovie.com
Copyright © 2010 by Jim Mueller, President and co-founder of Growthtrac Ministries.
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Jim Mueller
Jim is the founder, with wife, Sheri, of Growthtrac Ministries as well as Program Director of GrowthtracRadio and the architect behind marriagetrac.com. Jim holds a B.S. in business management and is a facilitator for PREPARE/ENRICH, the most widely used customized couple assessment tool. He has authored numerous articles, interviewed leading relationship experts, and Christian artists, and has contributed to Dr. Les Parrott’s book, The Complete Guide to Marriage Mentoring. Jim has worked for more than 15 years to help premarital couples and married couples build and maintain healthy relationships.
