MEL GIBSON’S “PASSION” WINS ITS FIRST FILM FESTIVAL AWARD

The 5th Annual Christian WYSIWYG Film Festival honored Mel Gibson’s "The Passion of The Christ" with the "Film of The Year" award for 2004.
The award follows the recent recognition for producer of the year given at the Hollywood Awards to Mel Gibson

Holly McClure, the executive producer for the behind the scenes special, "The
Making of The Passion of The Christ”, commented, “In what will surely be a season of multiple awards and recognition for "The Passion of the Christ", WYSIWYG is the first Christian film festival to bestow honors on the film.”
The 5th Annual Christian WYSIWYG Film Festival honored “The Passion of the Christ”, the blockbuster film directed by Mel Gibson, with the “Film of the Year” award for 2004. The festival, held in San Francisco, has become the gathering spot for Christian filmmakers worldwide who are riding the wave of renewed interest in Biblical themes that “The Passion of the Christ” has helped facilitate within the Hollywood community.

The festival was also host to a French film crew that is making a documentary, “The Apostles of the 7th Art”, for French television. Jeremiah Cullinane, the director of this documentary, recently wrote an article in his local Irish paper about the phenomenal rise of the Christian film industry. The article was picked up by 45 news agencies worldwide and spearheaded the filming of the documentary at the Christian WYSIWYG Film Festival.
The theme of the festival this year was “God’s Big Adventure” and the entire theatrical location was decorated in a desert theme, a mix of Indiana Jones/Lawrence of Arabia, with a 1940’s atmosphere dominated by a fully-restored ‘38 Buick Special.
In contrast, the technology displayed at the festival was definitely the cutting-edge future. Christian WYSIWYG Networks revealed the prototype of their “Abraham” camera, which films at over 3,800 frames a second. It was a big hit.

Other new technologies were also presented. This was definitely a “first.”
Usually, Christian filmmakers are known for using “hand-me-down” technologies and being last on the “Ain’t it cool?” list. If this festival was a preview of things to come, you can expect the coolest, greatest and best of films coming from the Christian community in the near future.
Richard Gazowsky, the President of Christian WYSIWYG Networks, was the keynote speaker and declared that, “The New Christian Renaissance in Hollywood has begun. Just as the first Renaissance in Italy brought about the rebirth of Roman art (translated to Christian tradition by Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and other greats) so the golden years of Hollywood in the 1940’s are coming back as the art of cinema is used to tell traditional Christian-themed stories.” “This,” he continued, “is the beginning of the film industry’s finest moments.” He went on to parallel the four years that Michelangelo took to paint the Sistine Chapel with the four years Mel Gibson took to develop “The Passion of the Christ”, and how both works of art have been viewed by nearly the same number of people.
The festival also presented to Sherwood Pictures the Best Feature Film award for 2004 for their film “Flywheel”. The day before the award was given, this film had been picked up by Blockbuster Video. This was quite a surprise, seeing that the film’s budget was only $20,000.
The 6th Annual Christian WYSIWYG Film Festival will be held next year on October 18-22, 2005.
The theme will be “The Renaissance of the 7th Art”.