EWTN's The Crusades wins the Grand Prix Niepokalanow Poland

EWTN’s The Crusades wins major award

Map showing the extent of Muslim conquest by 732

EWTN, the global Catholic television network has won the Grand Prix of the 30^th Niepokalanow International Catholic Film Festival Poland. http://www.festiwalniepokalanow.pl/ The competition to win this award was considerable with entries coming from 18 different countries, and included 117 feature films, documentaries and TV programs. 

The production was filmed in seven counties across Europe and the Holy Land and included interviews with four major Crusades historians from Britain and the USA. They were able to bring to the production some of the very latest scholarship regarding the Crusades and have dispelled many of the myths.  

The Crusades was an international co-production between EWTN -Global Catholic Network (USA), St Clare Media – EWTN (UK), Buckfast Abbey (UK) and Lux communication (Slovakia). We hope that people will take a fresh look at the Crusades instead of following the tired old dated theories.

Links to clips

The Opening Sequence

EWTN Wings

Now in Production for EWTN a four part docudrama

The Inquisition

After months of Pre-Production, the production phase of EWTN’s The Inquisition is now underway. There is still of course much planning and research to be done and the scripts need to be finalised.

The first filming sessions have now taken place with an 11 day trip to Spain. We kicked off in Spain mainly because I wanted the film the Semana Santa (Holy Week) penitential processions.

One of the Penitential Brotherhoods
Process in Salamanca 

Just like EWTN’s The Crusades I wanted a binding element as sort of background link to history that I could use in various places in the documentary. For the Crusades, I used the Chartres Pilgrimage, which not only takes place in the heartland of the Franks but also emphasises the pilgrimage element of the Crusades. For the Inquisition I wanted to film during Semana Santa (Holy Week) and the penitential processions in Spain. This gives us a pictorial view of the penitential link between Auto de fe, the inquisition, and today.

The Brothers carry a float depicting
Christ and Roman solider.

Superb workmanship on the figures. 

On 26^th March I flew into Madrid and met the team, Michal Benko Camera/Editor and Paul Kadlecik second Camera/Technician. Michal and Paul picked up hire car and we then started a gruelling eleven day, 1500 mile trip around major inquisition sites and cities of Spain. Not to mention filming the Holy Week processions which are accompanied by massive crowds: there were 300,000 they tell me lining the streets in Seville, which made filming very challenging, however, luckily we already had processions at Avila and Salamanca in the can.

Typically ornate Spanish Church

Like The Crusades for The Inquisition we are attempting to get to the truth of the matter. Why for example has the Inquisition become a byword for terror, cruelty and religious fanaticism? A black legend has been created with most of the fingers pointing at the Catholic Church and in particular, Spain. However, most these myths and Black Legends are false, created by the ancestors of the modern secular media. And just like the today’s Black Legends, they are, and continue to be created by those with an agenda yes they were created for a reason. If you want to find out the full story of the Inquisition we hope to finish the series by the late autumn of this year.