|PIC1|The world’s first black Jesus movie that interprets the life of Jesus, premiered yesterday, at the annual Sundance film festival in Utah, USA. The film will play throughout the event until the 29th of January.

Son of Man, the first South African film to be entered in the prestigious US festival, was directed by British native and current South Africa resident Mark Dornford-May. This is Donford-May’s second film following the award-winning U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, which was created in collaboration with the South African theatre company, Dimpho Di Kopane.

The 90-minute film expresses the life and death of Christ from first century Palestine to a contemporary African state racked by war and poverty.

Besides the fact that Jesus is African, content in the film slightly differs from the original story of Jesus many are familiar with. For example, Mary conceives Christ during a militia attack on a grade school rather than Bethlehem in a manger. Later on in the film includes a scene where Jesus asks for the surrender of handguns from his apostles.

|QUOTE|"We wanted to look at the gospels as if they were written by spin doctors and to strip that away and look at the truth," director Mark Dornford-May told Reuters in an interview. "The important thing about the message of Christ was that it is universal. It doesn't matter what he looked like."

Son of Man, which was filmed in Khayelitsha and the Eastern Cape, is in Xhosa African language and English.

According to Dornford-May, the film has so far been broadly praised by focus groups of church leaders and ordinary Christians in South Africa, where Christianity often comes in a conservative form. He hopes this will predict a hit on the continent and worldwide.