Sonlight's Forgiven

As my master plan to kick off Sonlight Pictures evolves I've been steadily tweaking my approach. I've recently been inspired to write a short, intense film called Forgiven about a young woman on her way to join a convent who ends up caught in an brutal hostage situation. During her struggles she must decide whether to follow Jesus' example and forgive her attackers, no matter how abusive they become.

I'm hoping to shoot the short film this year and use it as a "calling card" to raise the necessary capital to shoot the other feature scripts. There are some very interesting web influenced money raising methods that have been gaining traction in the independent film world and I may be able to utilize one of them to help us raise our money for Sonlight's features.

As for the short film, the writing of Forgiven has not been a pleasant one, but it has been inspired. After writing one particularly disturbing scene I threw the notepad onto my desk, looked up to heaven and said angrily, "there, I hope you're happy!" I was not a happy camper.

The story was partially inspired by a missing element in the feature script Severed. Severed, as an action film about martyrdom, requires gun play and the lethal defending of one's life, but the missing Christian element is that of loving your enemy. Try as I did, I could not fit that layer into that popcorn action flick, so I decided to focus that element into the short Forgiven.

As I said, it hasn't been a fun writing experience, but it is apparently a necessary one.