Mark Harrington in front of his "Created Equal" video display. (Anita Crane © 2012)

WASHINGTON – Despite sleet and bitter cold, many pro-life Americans in Washington for the March for Life, as well as people from other countries, stopped to watch the video “Created Equal” as it played on a jumbo screen on Constitution Avenue near Fourth Street NW. One of the attractions was the imagery of Martin Luther King Jr. and his voice echoing a few blocks in surrounding areas.

Mark Harrington, executive director of Created Equal in Columbus, Ohio, produced the stunning video by the same name and it begins by warning viewers of graphic and disturbing images of “severe injustice.”

“Our hope is that young people will be reminded and reaffirm their commitment to defend life – why they’re at the march. In many respects, the march doesn’t represent the victims,” Harrington told WND. “If you go to the March for Life, there’s a lot of speeches, the march is good, a lot of young people, a lot of positive stuff. But, for the most part, abortion victims aren’t represented and so we’re representing the victims. People need to be reminded that violence [of abortion] is happening every day.”

A group of Catholic teens stopped to ponder the video, with one boy exclaiming, “It’s cool!” However, the youth leader from their St. Louis, Mo., parish refused to let them be interviewed.

Prior to arriving in Washington, representatives of a Catholic church in Atlanta had complained to Harrington in fear that his public display would upset children.

Jill Stanek, activist, speaker and vigilant blogger at JillStanek.com, was bundled in layers fitting of her hometown Chicago when she came upon the “Created Equal” video scene. Stanek, of course, was a registered nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Ill., when she discovered abortions were being committed there and babies who survived abortion were being left to die without medical care.

She told WND, “I think this is an important movement forward. It’s just the next place that we have to go and I’m just grateful to Created Equal for the video. Some people aren’t going to like it, but it’s the truth and everybody needs to see it – you don’t forget when you see the product of an actual abortion and it changes hearts. The normal complaint is going be about kids seeing it. But in the end, I’d rather have kids see these photos than be in one of these photos.”

“I think people need to see abortion to understand what it is – even the people who are here marching. A lot of them don’t know why they’re here,” Darius Hardwick from Columbus, Ohio, told WND. “I didn’t understand abortion until I saw it. Even pro-life Christians need to see it to change their minds. This gets people’s attention like nothing else.”

Created Equal from Mark Harrington on Vimeo.

Read the rest of the story at WND: http://www.wnd.com/2012/01/this-gets-peoples-attention-like-nothing-else/

Norma McCorvey in "Doonby." (Doonby the Movie © 2012)

MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH
Roe v. Wade opponents target Dallas for decision’s anniversary
Theme of rally: ‘It began in Dallas. Let’s end it in Dallas’
Published: Jan. 20, 2012

By Anita Crane

As hundreds of thousands prepare to march on Washington, Dallas, San Francisco and other American cities to protest the Supreme Court’s infamous Roe v. Wade decision, Norma McCorvey, the “Jane Roe” of that case, spoke to WND about her role in history and the movie “Doonby.”

Mike Mackenzie, a producer of “Doonby” and son of the movie’s writer/director/producer Peter Mackenzie, joined the conversation. The mystical thriller stars John Schneider as American drifter Sam Doonby in a daring adventure.

“Doonby” Writer/Director/Producer Peter Mackenzie with his sons at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Dan Mackenzie (left) was a cameraman for the film and Mike Mackenzie (right) is one of the producers. (Courtesy of Doonby the Movie © 2011)

McCorvey will speak Saturday at the Dallas March for Life rally, where the theme is: “It began in Dallas. Let’s end it in Dallas.” This means marchers conclude their annual protest at the Earle Cabell Federal Courthouse, which houses the district court where ambitious pro-abortion attorneys first filed the Roe case in 1970, while McCorvey was homeless, unwed, drug-addicted and pregnant with her third child.

“By casting Norma in the film, we hope to highlight the ambivalence Americans have had towards the subject of abortion,” Mike Mackenzie said. “Norma spent half her life being pro-choice, found Christ and became pro-life, and now she’s a fervent activist.”

Starting February 17, “Doonby” launches with a limited release in four Mississippi towns, then opens in Dallas movie theaters on February 24. In the spring, theater distribution will expand and WND readers will be able to find theater locations at Doonby.com.

“I just hope everybody comes out and sees ‘Doonby,’” said McCorvey. “I don’t say that because I’m in it, I say it because it’s a great flick – a great psychological thriller.”

“We hope this film highlights the social issue and really affirms the significance of every [human] life,” said Mackenzie. “What we want to do is raise awareness of the issue without trying to side one way or the other – really just trying to focus on this life issue and protecting the most sacred gift we have.”

Schneider and several of his “Doonby” co-stars, including Joe Estevez, Jennifer O’Neill, Robert Davi, Jenn Gotzon, Erin Way and Will Wallace, spoke to WND about what compelled them to do the film and why they think it deserves an audience. While the movie release date has changed, you can read interviews with Schneider, Estevez and Way and with Wallace, Davi, O’Neill and Gotzon.

Read the in-depth story on Norma and see her in “Doonby” at http://www.wnd.com/2012/01/roe-v-wade-opponents-target-dallas-for-decisions-anniversary/. Also be sure to read her gutsy congressional testimony by clicking on the word “testified” in the above article.

Happy story about ‘year that I died’

‘Snowmen’ movie the story of three unlikely heroes

Posted: December 01, 2011
1:00 am Eastern

By Anita Crane
© 2011 WND

“Snowmen” star Bobby Coleman with Writer/Director Robert Kirbyson. (Courtesy of Mpower Pictures © 2009)

“It was going to be the most amazing winter ever … the year that I died.”

So opens the new family film “Snowmen,” a happy – yes, happy – adventure starring Bobby Coleman as 10-year-old Billy Kirkfield, Ray Liotta as his father Reggie and a cast of endearing characters played by Christopher Lloyd, Christian Martyn, Doug E. Doug, Bobb’e J. Thomson, Josh Flitter and Demi Peterson.

“Snowmen” is the first feature film by Canadian writer and director Robert Kirbyson, who pays homage to his father, his brother and his boyhood friends.

The film is produced by Mpower Pictures, the movie company of Stephen McEveety, who also produced “The Passion of the Christ,” “We Were Soldiers,” “Braveheart” and many other films for Mel Gibson’s Icon Productions.

As WND reported, “Snowmen” had a very limited run in movie theaters. John Shepherd, a producer and co-founder of Mpower Pictures, described “Snowmen” as “Braveheart for kids,” and this brand new family classic is available on DVD from WND.

It’s almost impossible to describe this totally surprising movie without spoilers.

Thus, Kirbyson told WND, “The movie’s kind of a tough sell when you first describe it. One spoiler that I do want people to know is that ‘Snowmen’ has a happy ending. I want parents to know there are some things that sensitive kids might struggle with, but hang in there because there’s a very happy ending.”

Read more: Happy story about ‘year that I died’ http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=372513#ixzz1fP73LVxJ

Drifter’s story captures attention at Life Fest

Affirmation of value and meaning ‘exactly’ the message it carries

Posted: April 18, 2011
8:46 pm Eastern
By Anita Crane
© 2011 WorldNetDaily

Independent filmmakers and actors who attended the Life Fest in Los Angeles, Hollywood’s premier pro-life film festival, say it was a huge success because it united them in the beauty of human life, truth, love – and apparently surprises.

It included a filmmaker who had worked on Al Gore’s blockbuster “An Inconvenient Truth” and, as WND previously reported, the makers of a major motion picture screened their film.

The picture is “Doonby,” starring John Schneider as a drifter who shows up in small-town Smithville, Texas, and captures everyone’s attention.

During turbulent times, “Doonby” couldn’t be more relevant as millions of Americans feel like drifters seeking work, affordable homes and, ultimately, purpose.

This September, “Doonby” opens in U.S. theaters with the cast of Robert Davi, Joe Estevez, Ernie Hudson, Jennifer O’Neill and Jenn Gotzon as the leading man’s love interest.

Gotzon, who stars in four features due out this year, encouraged the independent filmmakers at Life Fest.

“It was great to finally screen ‘Doonby’ for an L.A. audience and take questions from the viewers,” Gotzon told WND. “It was very inspirational hearing a world share the love of life through cinema. I also enjoyed meeting up with my ‘Frost/Nixon’ cast-mate Clint Howard at this wonderful event.”

“Doonby” writer and director Peter Mackenzie couldn’t attend Life Fest but shared his leading lady’s enthusiasm.

Mackenzie told WND, “When we heard about a film festival that celebrated the notion that each life has value and meaning, we realized that that was exactly the message of our film and we were honored to be a part of it. Another film that’s being shown, Mira Sorvino’s ‘Like Dandelion Dust,’ has a similar message and we were pleased to be in such good company.

“Sam Doonby, our lead character, is in many ways the outsider, the loner – and yet his life makes such an incredible difference when he comes to Smithville,” said Mackenzie. “You will leave the theater after seeing ‘Doonby’ realizing how powerful your one life is and that you can truly make a difference in the world.”

Read more: http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=288741#ixzz1Jvk2fMGS

Festival reintroduces pro-life culture to Hollywood

‘Our goal is to restore that message in entertainment’

Posted: April 13, 2011
8:14 pm Eastern

By Anita Crane
© 2011 WorldNetDaily

Deborah Flora

This weekend, Hollywood insiders reach out to all Americans at Life Fest, the premier pro-life film festival for mainstream filmmakers. One major motion picture producer told WND that he will surprise the crowd with an exclusive screening of scenes from his upcoming feature scheduled for theaters this fall. After all, movies make a huge impact on American culture – and the world.

Life Fest will take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center with a lineup including Clint Howard and Charlie Holliday – actors beyond the big screen. Actresses Mell Flynn and Deborah Flora, as well as her husband, filmmaker Jonathan Flora, have leading roles. And Alfonzo Rachel of Macho Sauce Productions will add spice to the mix.

Life Fest is the brainchild of Brian Johnston, director of the Sacramento-based California ProLife Council.

“There are many pro-life people in the entertainment industry. I’ve been personally concerned about the dramatic cultural changes over the last 10 to 15 years through television and film,” he explained. “But the most important message is what made Hollywood a success: that every human life has value.” …

Jonathan Flora said, “This is the first festival like this – in California, in Hollywood – and we’re taking it one step at time. I really appreciate the vision of Life Fest. The reason that few [life-affirming] movies get made is because people don’t want to push against the wave. Hollywood is a very liberal place and that mindset dominates the projects that get made.

Jonathan Flora

“We’re showing that it’s OK to come out – pro-life filmmakers have to come out in spite of the pushback you’ll get from the industry. It’s the new coming out,” Flora mused. “If Hollywood’s all about the voice of the story, then they should be willing to listen to all of the voices.”

Read more: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.printable&pageId=286689

Award-winning movie reveals Christian love

‘When you have a Muslim population asking for monks, it’s just so different’

Posted: February 26, 2011
1:00 am Eastern

By Anita Crane
© 2011 WorldNetDaily

“Should it ever befall me, and it could happen today, to fall victim to the terrorism which seems to now want to engulf all the foreigners living here, I would like my community, my church and my family to remember that my life was GIVEN to God and to this country.

“May they accept that the Unique Master of all life could not be a stranger to this brutal departure. May they be able to associate this death to so many other violent ones, consigned to the apathy of anonymity.”

When Father Christian de Chergé, the French prior of the Cistercian household in Tibhirine, Algeria, wrote that testament, he didn’t expect to inspire France’s top-grossing movie in 2010 or a Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, among numerous other accolades.

But opening this weekend in New York and Los Angeles is Xavier Beauvois’ film “Of Gods and Men,” and it will be in other cities soon.

In March 1996, Father Christian and six of his brother monks were kidnapped by the Armed Islamic Group or GIA, whose members sought to overthrow Algeria’s government and demanded that France release Islamists from its custody. Two months later, the monks’ heads were found near Médéa.

Read more: Award-winning movie reveals Christian love http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=268233#ixzz1F4rFWDRK

Find a movie theater near you: http://www.sonyclassics.com/ofgodsandmen/dates.html

By Anita Crane
© 2011 WorldNetDaily

In the wake of the latest video sting by Live Action showing a Planned Parenthood employee apparently willing to aid supposed sex traffickers in procuring abortions for minors, Planned Parenthood claimed to be “profoundly shocked” and fired the director of a New Jersey clinic who was caught advising a supposed pimp to circumvent the law.

But Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and a staunch activist for protections for the unborn, is questioning the genuineness of those actions.

“If you look at all the evidence in several projects, you will see that Planned Parenthood is not helping people to plan families, they’re helping people to kill babies and hurt women,” Alveda King told WND.

As part of her work on behalf of the unborn, she has narrated the new documentary, “Blood Money,” which chronicles the tactics of the abortion industry’s multi-billion dollar business in the United States. The project features interviews with former abortion providers, in-depth investigators, and numerous post-abortive women from young to mature.

“The videos by Live Action confirm all the information that is readily available in the film ‘Blood Money,’” said King. “There is too much evidence from people who actually practiced abortion: Abby Johnson, Carol Everett and then the work of Live Action films.”

Read more: <I>Insiders</i> expose abortion industry in 'Blood Money' http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=264177#ixzz1EhaBK0zz

Since his inauguration in 2009, Barack Obama has recognized many crowds who gather for one cause or another – many except the March for Life.

Nevertheless, numerous leaders, including celebrities and a former Planned Parenthood director, join March for Life President Nellie Gray in calling Americans to the front lines of the battle against abortion.

The Best Documentary Oscar to be handed out next month could go to a film made by a director who won’t reveal his name and that even admiring movie critics concede could be a bunch of hooey.

Welcome to the state of documentary films circa 2011, as makers push the form in ways that some see as destructive. From “Exit Through the Gift Shop” and “Catfish” to “I’m Still Here,” more documentary films are blurring the line between fiction and nonfiction and being charged with deliberately playing loose with the facts.

Nina Gilden Seavey, an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker and director of the Documentary Center at George Washington University, said talk of “Gift Shop” winning a documentary-feature Oscar — it’s on the shortlist of 15 contenders for the final five nominations — is “blasphemous.”

“When you think of what it takes for a filmmaker to make a film … the time, the care, the effort to try to get to the heart of a story in a truthful way,” Ms. Gilden Seavey said. “Then, to have the critics and public be seduced by all appearances by a falsehood, by a Potemkin Village, that to my mind is a disservice to the form.”

She acknowledges documentary filmmakers aren’t journalists, and their films shouldn’t be reduced to a dull point-counterpoint format. But the current film trends alarm her all the same.

“If you start to question the truth, it all becomes a presumed fiction. And that is a nail in the coffin of the form,” she said.

Read the rest here: https://www.washingtontimes..com/news/2011/jan/10/filmmakers-blurring-line-between-documentary-drama/?page=1

Novelist Robert Liparulo

Many of Robert Liparulo’s boyhood dreams have come true. Now, as a successful writer, Liparulo speaks at schools around the United States, where he inspires students to read, write and live their dreams.

Liparulo, a Christian, family man, sportsman and former journalist, writes thrillers and screenplays. His novels include Comes a Horseman and Germ. The main character of his John Hutchinson novels is a Denver Post writer and avid bowman purposely placed in Liparulo’s home state. After all, when Liparulo was a child, he rode through Colorado with his father, “loved it” and urged his parents to move the family there upon his dad’s 1975 retirement from the U.S. Air Force.

Liparulo said, “Deadlock takes place primarily in Denver and John Hutchinson lives in Highlands Ranch, a popular residential community just south of Denver.” In that same novel, a major shootout takes place at Casa Bonita, the spectacular Mexican restaurant that Liparulo hails for its entertainment, especially real live cliff divers.

“I love downtown Denver, the big-city-but-friendly atmosphere. Every year we spend the two days before Christmas in downtown Denver, just taking in the Denver holiday – carriage rides, Santa pictures, great restaurants – we always watch a movie on Christmas Eve at a theater in the 16th Street Mall,” he said.

Liparulo’s latest book is Frenzy, final novel of the six-part Dreamhouse Kings series, which is action-packed and supernatural adventures for preteens and teens. The series begins with House of Dark Shadows as Mr. King (Dad) takes the job of school principal in a small and remote California town. Mom loves and supports her husband no matter what, but children David, Xander, and Toria are disappointed. After moving into an old house, however, they discover that scary people can enter through its doors and those same doors lead to dangerous places and periods of time.

In the second book, Watcher in the Woods, someone kidnaps Mom, so the family must rescue her – but along the way, they have to decide whether to intervene in history.

This fantastic and educational series has been optioned for feature films by Hollywood screenwriter and producer Eric Garcia, whose credits include Repo Men and Matchstick Men.

Like novelist Andrew Klavan, Liparulo refuses to alienate his kid characters from their parents. Instead, the whole King family fights the good fight together because love conquers evil.

“That’s an element of the story that was important to me,” said Liparulo. “Before diving into the Dreamhouse Kings, I read a lot of young adult fiction. It was disturbing how many YA stories pit adults verses kids; either the parents are absent or abusive. I think it’s a cheap crutch: All stories need tension and doing it that way is easy, but I don’t think it reflects the majority of families.

“Kids motivate and inspire me,” he said. “I always get more out of my school presentations than they do. Kids love story – they could care less about the business of writing. They want to know about characters and why a story twisted this way instead of that way.

“They remind me of why I wanted to be a storyteller: because I love stories, not because I love the business,” said the father of four. “Also, it’s my hope that these kids will understand that they can live their dreams. They can be anything they aspire to be, as long as they pursue it with all their heart. It worked for me.”

Liparulo’s writing dreams began to come true when his dad was assigned to  Lajes Field, 65th Air Base Wing, in the Azores Islands of Portugal.

“I’m one of those ‘always knew I’d be a writer’ guys – at least as far back as third grade,” he said.

“When I was in fifth grade, I lived in the Azores Islands and the Concorde made its first transatlantic flight landing there to refuel. I got to watch it and I wrote about it for my teacher, who sent it in to a magazine without telling how old I was. About four or five months later, we got a check and the magazine in the mail because they had printed my article! As soon as I realized I could get paid to write, that was it,” Liparulo explained.

“I remember reading House of the Seven Gables, Darby O’Gill and the Little People, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Moby Dick, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; I loved anything by Jack London,” he said.

Yet I Am Legend by Richard Matheson moved young Liparulo most. “For about half the book, the main character, Robert Neville, tries to get a sick dog inside his home,” said Liparulo. “When he finally does, he spends the night nursing it. Stroking the dog, he recalls the way things used to be. The last line of the chapter was: ‘In the morning the dog was dead.’ Not only was the dog cool, its death was symbolic of the death of life as it had once been.

“I started crying and I thought, ‘If words – only WORDS! – can make me, a pretty tough 12-year-old boy cry, I want to do that,’” Liparulo said. “For years I went around telling people what I wanted to do when I grew up was make 12-year-old boys cry. It was then that I also decided I didn’t want to be just a writer, but a novelist.”

I don’t know whether Bob Liparulo’s books make boys cry, but tears streamed down my face as I read the climax of Frenzy.

“The inspiration for the Dreamhouse Kings was a dream,” he said. When Liparulo was 11, he and his brother found an “amazing” antique playground in a wooded area of the Azores. So he wondered about the children who once played there and that night he dreamed that he could fly over it. Over the years, even after Bob Liparulo was married to his wife Jodi and had his own children, he kept dreaming about this historic place and at some point a haunted house began appearing in the dreams. In 2008, some three decades after discovering the playground, publisher Thomas Nelson released Liparulo’s dreams to the world.

Adult fans of the Dreamhouse Kings series include parents, teachers, librarians and R.L. Stine, author of the Fear Street and Goosebumps books. Stine exclaimed, “If you like creepy and mysterious, this is the house for you! … I loved wandering around in these books.” That said, Liparulo is surprised to get more fan letters from girls than boys. And boy fans include young actor Slade Pearce, who befriended Liparulo and said, “This is my new favorite series!”

In Frenzy, Robert Liparulo thanks his wife and children, Melanie, Isabella, Matt and Anthony,  “for everything.” Anthony added to the plot, and Liparulo held contests for his readers to contribute scenes, compose music, and draw the characters. Learn more about the author and his books at DreamhouseKings.com. To book Robert Liparulo for your school, write to him at DreamhouseKings.com/have-robert-liparulo-visit-your-school.

Anita Crane is a freelance writer and editor. Earlier this year she represented Robert Liparulo through Allen Media Strategies in Virginia, where she works as a media booking specialist. Any opinions expressed by Anita here and elsewhere are hers and do not necessarily represent the viewpoint of AMS.

Published by ChristianNewsToday.com, DailyEstimate.com, RenewAmerica.com, SperoForum.com