World Premiere at CayFilm Takes on Issues of Faith, Equality

Can an American film that features a mostly non-white cast and asks hard questions about faith find an audience in the modern world?

For the diverse cast and crew responsible for the new feature film “Testament,” which will premiere at this month’s Cayman International Film Festival, that answer itself has simply become a matter of faith as the lines between faith-based entertainment and secular mainstream movies become ever more pronounced.

“It’s hard marketing a film that deals with faith without people dismissing it right off the bat as soon as they suspect that there might be religious overtones,” says director Tim Ritter. “I also don’t see many films out there featuring minorities in the lead roles that aren’t about the ‘minority experience,’ so we have that to deal with, too.

“The bottom line is that this film was made by serious and accomplished filmmakers and actors, and we’ve created something new and challenging that we haven’t seen the likes of in either the mainstream or Christian film markets right now. So I’m very interested to see whether people line up for it or reject it.”

Demi Castro plays Simon, a regular man who is asked to be something more when he is swept up into a popular movement only to see the leader of that movement killed violently. Everyone in the movement turns to Simon to keep the movement alive. The only problem? He’s not even sure he believes in the movement anymore.

Castro has been one of the film’s biggest believers, becoming an advocate after being cast and helping to raise a portion of its budget himself, and has seen firsthand the impact it’s had on audiences in just a few small private screenings already.

“This film has a lot of relevance,” said Castro, an acting veteran of such popular TV fare as “Bloodline” and “Graceland.” “It has the ability to affect a lot of people’s lives and to make a difference. There’s not too much out there like that.”

Simon’s life and many of the events in the film, which is set in a fictional world that closely resembles our own, are drawn from the life of one of Jesus’ most cherished disciples, Simon Peter.

The modernization and the fictional setting allowed Ritter to explore what the early Christian movement might look like if it were to take place today—and how most of us might react to it.

“I kind of get the feeling sometimes that most modern Christians wouldn’t really recognize Christ or his followers—or even his ideas—today,” said Ritter, a successful reporter who taught himself film a decade ago and now teaches others at the Los Angeles Film School. “And I don’t know how many of us would be willing to make the kinds of sacrifices his early followers made regularly.

“This shows some of those sacrifices and also asks, ‘Just what is the personal cost of trying to change the world for the better?’”

The Testament team found their own faith both challenged and rewarded in seemingly equal measure throughout the making of the film.

Providence showed first when Ritter found Castro through a striking coincidence while assembling a cast with credits ranging from “The Birth of a Nation” to “The Founder” to several popular TV shows.

Another actor, Jose Miguel Vasquez (“Allegiant,” “Term Life,” “All Eyez on Me”), was trying out for the pivotal role of Simon’s brother Drew (based on Andrew in the Gospels), when Ritter told him to audition for a different role.

“I loved his Drew—it was the best version I had seen,” said Ritter, who sifted through more than 150 auditions for the film’s six principal roles along with his casting team. “But I told him, ‘Sorry; we just don’t have any Hispanic candidates for the role of Simon.’ Since they play brothers, that’s kind of important.”

Vasquez immediately thought of his friend Castro and threw his name in the pot. Within a few weeks, the two were cast as the brothers.

The providence? The two had met years before when they were both part of a Biblical play, in which they played the roles of … Simon Peter and Andrew.

“That’s when I started to feel like a light was shining on us from somewhere, and that we were doing something that we were supposed to be doing,” Ritter said.

However, the filmmakers’ faith was tested later when multiple members of the small, tight-knit crew died during postproduction, from causes ranging from traffic accidents to suicide.

“We’ve had some setbacks,” Ritter said. “Losing those guys really stung, and it still hurts. That’s only made us more resolute to get this film out to the world and honor their contributions.”

The film seems to be tailor made for today’s world, from its diverse crew that featured ancestry from Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Vietnam, Korea and many other regions to its evoking of a world dealing with economic and environmental catastrophe.

But most of all, it asks that most Christian question: How does one live a righteous life, and how can one use Christian principles to make his or her world a better place for everyone else?

As the filmmakers try to reach a broad audience instead of taking the common approach of playing in Christian-only markets and venues, they have found a lot of film festivals shrinking away from the idea of taking on a film dealing with questions of faith, however subtle. Castro believes, however, that once people are able to see what he, Ritter and their team have created, many of those artificial walls will come down quickly.

“This is a film that can change people’s lives,” Castro said. “That’s how good it is.”