Belief on Screen

Silent film classic introduced by Peter Skov-Jakobsen, Bishop of Copenhagen.

Jonas, the lead singer of the band Hymns From Nineveh, is about to release his next album, which he wrote during his depression. The pressure of work makes him worried about getting sick again. Music and his Christian faith become a lifeline. This is part 1 “At the crossroads of despair” in a to-part documentary.

A disillusioned and bittersweet wandering in the streets of Selma, Alabama as the 60th anniversary of the Marches is approaching. What about MLK legacy of peace and non-violence? What about civil rights? What about Christianity and church active role in society?

At their core, people have more in common than they realize. We live in an age of hate speech, division, and polarization. We focus on what divides us, not on what unites us. We need to create more spaces for people to come together—safe spaces where people can engage in dialogue openly and with curiosity, without fear of attracting hatred or rejection.

In six episodes, "Against All Gods" is intended to answer the important and urgent question: Is a world possible in which all religions live together in peace? Sometimes the six roommates are among themselves in the loft, sometimes in Berlin or in the surrounding area of the capital, sometimes they invite interesting guests. The camera is always there. Together, they pursue one goal: to break down barriers, talk to each other and show that religion in the 21st century is anything but old-fashioned and unworldly.

At its peak in the 1960s, over 6,000 Irish Catholic missionaries were dispersed over 80 countries. Today there are about 450 Irish missionaries still scattered around the world. And most of these are well over the age of sixty. By the end of this decade, that number is likely to fall to about two hundred. This is in so many ways, the end of an era. In this two-part series, Dearbhail McDonald and Bryan Dobson, tell the crucial story of the priests and nuns who left Ireland. At its heart, this is an odyssey of human encounters, as they explore the shifting social and religious landscape at home and abroad, which created this unique phenomenon. They will demonstrate how Irish missionaries enabled Ireland to punch way above its weight, in terms of global influence, while also raising consciousness of global affairs, at home. Some of those priests and religious undoubtedly led heroic lives of self-sacrifice, but sadly, the legacy of some others is more tainted, even toxic. For better, for worse, that is the story the series tells with fairness and unflinching honesty, while the last Irish missionaries are still able to share their experiences first-hand.

The documentary film "Roman Dream" depicts how hope and faith do not fade despite a difficult, almost hopeless life situation. The main protagonists of the film are a mother and daughter – Elizabeta and Mija – whose example testifies to how faith in God helped them survive the hardest moments of their lives. In 2009, Elizabeta Kurtz Hranilović from Zagreb gave birth to her son, Pavao. Following a normal pregnancy, shock ensued when she learned that her son had nearly lost his life due to a medical error, and that her own life was in danger. Pavao barely survived the consequences of the childbirth, suffering from them his entire life, fully dependent on parental and medical care. His older sister, Mia, grew up in the hospital alongside her brother, where she often stayed with her parents. Just 32 days before Pavao's death in 2022, his father Marko passed away from the consequences of an illness. In just one month, the Hranilović family lost their boys, father Marko and son Pavao. Elizabeta, a religious education teacher by profession, testifies that in those moments, only faith in God helped her, and that she drew strength from it to carry on living and caring for her Mia, who decided to enroll in medical school after graduating from high school to continue helping people, just as doctors had helped her brother.During Pavao's illness, prayer sustained the family, who created pocket prayer cards for the occasion, featuring Pavao's photo alongside the image of Saint John Paul II, the family's favorite saint to whom they turned in their prayers. Following their loss, a wish remained for the mother and daughter to visit his tomb in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican during the Jubilee Year dedicated to hope.

With a Televizier-Ring award under his belt, thousands of followers on social media and a career as a TV presenter, Robbert Rodenburg seems to have it all. Yet deep down, he doesn't feel fully accepted. He grew up in a conservative Christian community, where he came to feel that being gay was wrong. In this documentary, after years of silence, he confronts his past. He speaks with his family and childhood friends, revisits the secondary school where he was so unhappy, and seeks answers from members of the church: is it possible, as a gay person, to truly feel at home within the church?

Ukraine, Palestine, Iran – The world is full of war and conflict right now – and Denmark is involved. The Danish defense is being given billions of kroner in the coming years. And every time Danish soldiers are sent on a mission, we also send a priest with us. The Danish defense has almost 100 priests attached to the Army, Navy and Air Force. Priests play an important role both on missions and for the soldiers back home in Denmark.

• How can you go to war and kill and at the same time ask for God's forgiveness?
• Why bless soldiers who kill people when the Bible says you must not kill?
• What is the role of a priest in a war zone?
• How does a priest talk to soldiers about death, grief, fear and life at home?
• How can a priest handle her own emotions when her young soldier friends are killed?

In a 4-part documentary series we follow priests involved in war. In this first episode priest takes aim with his gun to pass a shooting test. Adam is currently a parish priest in Gentofte Church, but is training to become a field chaplain. And when priests go to war, they must be able to shoot and run if necessary. But why would a priest expose himself to danger and conflict when he could live in peace in his rectory and his church?

In 1541, the central panel of the Marian Altar in Naumburg Cathedral was destroyed during iconoclasm, leaving only the side wings intact. In 2018, the Cathedral Chapter commissioned painter Michael Triegel to reconstruct the altar within the UNESCO World Heritage site.

For the first time, Triegel allowed a film crew to observe his creative process up close over several years, documenting his work from start to finish. The central part of the film is set in the painter’s studio, alternating between quiet observation and Triegel’s personal reflections on his artistic stance and worldview.

Shortly before the altar’s ceremonial consecration, UNESCO raised concerns about the altar. Then, in July 2025, they intervened — and the story took a new turn.

With few exceptions, Triegel is the only voice heard. The film becomes not merely a documentation of his most ambitious work to date, but also an intimate portrait revealing the artist’s vision, convictions, and human self-understanding.

Lebanese/Syrian friendship. Anthony and Fayez learned not to judge a book by it's cover.

Lebanon Our Story was a project where young members (15-25) of various religious groups within Lebanon, inclusive of displaced Syrians, Palestinians and Armenians, worked together to share a narrative of hope that drives social cohesion and provides an impetus for meaningful civic engagement.

This is a class photo like any other: smiling children, arms around each other. And yet, this picture is an achievement: these students are Muslim, Jewish, and Christian, all studying in the same school in Israel, despite the war that divides them. It is the Lasallian College of the Brothers of Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv. In this fractured, wounded, and vengeful society, courageous female teachers have taken on a mission: to build a shared future between Palestinian and Israeli children. These everyday heroines are fighting to keep the school open at all costs. While just a few kilometers away war is tearing the two peoples apart, they strive to shield the children from the hatred of adults.

The documentary “Paths of Faith: Faith Behind Bars” takes viewers into the environment of Valdice Prison, one of the most heavily guarded correctional facilities in the Czech Republic, housed in a former Carthusian monastery. Behind walls that for centuries first served spiritual contemplation and later punishment, quiet and often invisible struggles for meaning, hope, and the possibility of inner transformation unfold today. The film recalls the site’s historical spiritual legacy, including periods of political repression, and connects it with the present day, in which faith once again becomes a space of freedom — paradoxically in a place where physical freedom is most restricted.

The documentary focuses primarily on the everyday work of prison chaplains and their encounters with inmates. Through authentic testimonies from prisoners, interviews with chaplains and prison management, questions emerge concerning guilt and punishment, forgiveness, the instrumentalization of faith, and its genuine transformative power. Faith Behind the Wall offers a sensitive and nuanced perspective on a place where the harshness of the system meets human vulnerability, and where spiritual space may represent the last — and therefore all the more urgent — opportunity to search for one’s own path once again.

What happens when couples from different cultures and faiths decide to get married? In this series, we meet multicultural couples as they plan their Big Day and bring different cultural and spiritual values into their wedding ceremony.

Twenty (former) drug addicts and mentally vulnerable people go on a pilgrimage to Rome at the invitation of the Pope. There, they pass through the Holy Door of St. Peter's, which symbolizes redemption and a new beginning. A moving journey of a group of extraordinary people.

To those who knew her, she remained a discreet woman. The word surfaces again and again. Yet the closer we come to Jadwiga Maurizio, the more untold threads begin to emerge. And yet language, words, and storytelling were her domain.

While translating the literary worlds of Stanisław Lem into Spanish, did she deliberately hide behind his galaxy? Did she retreat into fiction because religion offered her no hope? It turns out that her gift for translation was itself part of a more distant inheritance, one she kept silent about throughout her life.

Only her goddaughter Ann uncovers it. Jadwiga’s grandfather was Samuel Szenhak, author of a Talmudic dictionary and translator of History of the Jews by Heinrich Graetz into Polish. Her grandmother’s brother was Izaak Cylkow, the rabbi who translated the books of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Polish. Who was this beautiful Polish woman in Barcelona, a Jewish Evangelical, dead yet without a grave?

In IFTAR Around the World, Hassnae Bouazza explores the world through the iftar, the meal with which Muslims break their fast during Ramadan. This daily tradition forms the backdrop for intimate and personal stories about love and loss, faith and happiness, heritage and the future. Each episode centres on one location where people share their experiences and memories around the iftar table.

Hassnae Bouazza:

“During iftar, cultures, traditions, past and present, and a whirlwind of emotions come together. Through this meaningful and sentimental meal, I wanted to share people’s stories. Ordinary people, extraordinary people, with stories that open doors to other worlds.”

London, Tromsø and Muscat are the central locations in the first season of IFTAR Around the World. In London, Ramadan has become a visible and celebrated part of public life. In the northern city of Tromsø, where winters are long and harsh, people find comfort and connection in gathering together. In the welcoming city of Muscat, the cuisine reflects the cultural diversity of the region. Food evokes memories, offers comfort, and becomes a tangible way of passing stories from one generation to another.

IFTAR Around the World shows how one shared meal can connect people across the globe, especially in times of change and uncertainty.

A chronicle of Gaza's christian community at a time when the Holy Land is too often viewed only through the lens of conflict. War Does Not Have the Last Word seeks to offer something different: a space for listening, contemplation and encounter.

Fewer than a thousand Christians still live in Gaza, most of them sheltering within the compound of the Holy Family parish. At the heart of the war, they share in the suffering of the entire population. Supported by Father Gabriel, the parish priest, they demonstrate remarkable resilience. Through their testimonies and those of their loved ones who have left the enclave, the film portrays a daily life marked by anxiety and shortages, but also by solidarity, prayer, and hope.

Reporter Anne Sheridan examines the Catholic Church's handling of allegations against the former Bishop of Galway, Eamonn Casey.