Video Divina: The Cardboard Village

St. Monica's Parish Hall - 6405 Terrebonne, Montreal, Qc.



Starring: Michael Lonsdale, Rutger Hauer, and Massimo De Francovich

In this grace-filled meditation on faith and historical/cultural change, an elderly Italian priest watches as his church, abandoned for some time, is deconsecrated; the pews pushed into a corner by a forklift, Christ on the cross deposed by a crane. In the night, while the discouraged priest prays alone, a group of desperate North Africans, just landed on the nearby beach, slip into the church seeking sanctuary. With the Carabinieri in pursuit, the illegals settle in the nave, silently throwing together huts out of cardboard. Warned by his sacristan, the pastor resists: “When charity is a risk, is precisely when it is necessary to offer charity.”