It’s lights, camera and action this month for national charity Bible Society as it turns out two professional film productions in a week for a Hollywood competition.

Bible Society is funding two teams to enter this year’s 168 Hour Film Project, based in Los Angeles.

The teams are made up a professional crew and actors working with York theatre company Riding Lights and the Bristol-based Handy Cloud Productions.

168 is an annual worldwide, faith-based competition which challenges production teams to complete a 10-minute film in just 168 hours - one week. Each film is based on a biblical theme and verse.

The completed films will be shown at the 168 Film Festival on April 3 to 4 in Los Angeles, where they will compete for awards in 21 categories. Prizes include a meeting with Ralph Winter, producer of X-Men.

Already teams of writers have scripted the dramas, film locations have been pinpointed, post-production teams have been assembled and the cameras are ready to roll.

Filming begins today and the finished version must be with the Hollywood competition judges by next Friday.

The theme for this year’s competition is ‘family business’. Riding Lights Theatre Company are making a film based on Luke 3.21-22, the verse they have been allocated. Handy Cloud Productions’ film will be based on Matthew 19.4-6.

Executive Producer and Bible Society’s Arts Development Officer Luke Walton, currently on location in York, said, "Our work with the two teams represents Bible Society’s continued commitment to developing and nurturing young film makers."

Handy Cloud Productions are first time film makers and have been given the resources to make their first short film. They will shoot a period comedy on location at a stately home outside Bristol that will "turn around the nature of marriage and words that Jesus spoke on the subject".

Bible Society’s Reel Issue Films, meanwhile, is collaborating with Riding Lights and will shoot much of the project at their theatre in York.

Last year, Bible Society scooped top honours at the 168 Hour Film Festival.
Home, which tells the story of a young man’s return to his family, won Best Director for Debs Gardner-Paterson and Best Supporting Actress for Lucinda Lloyd. It also took third place out of a field of 82 films.

Bible Society said its entry to the competition was part of its mission "to present Scripture in imaginative and relevant ways, and to build credibility in its life-changing message".