Covenant News

Bonhoeffer Film Opens This Weekend

CHICAGO, IL (March 28, 2003) - A film about the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer will open this weekend in Chicago as the culmination of a lengthy project that received assistance from North Park Theological Seminary (NPTS) Prof. L. Burton Nelson.

Nelson and film producer Martin Doblmeier were key players in the making of Bonhoeffer, a documentary portrait of German pastor, theologian and resistance fighter Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-45), who is considered to be one of the most relevant and influential religious figures of the modern era. The film will be shown at various times March 28-April 3 as part of the European Union Film Festival at the Gene Siskel Film Center located at 164 North State Street in Chicago.

One of the most notable Bonhoeffer scholars, Nelson continues to teach Bonhoeffer classes and Christian ethics classes at NPTS as its Research Professor of Christian Ethics, though he has been retired since 1995. He collaborated with Geoffrey Kelly to publish A Testament of Freedom: The Essential Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He traveled to Germany five years ago as part of the process of interviewing subjects for the 90-minute film.

Deeply impressed by the activist Black Abyssinian Church in Harlem, Bonhoeffer began to question the lack of social and political engagement and that of the German Protestant church while examining his own pastoral values system. He became one of the most outspoken opponents of Nazism and anti-Semitism during the reign of Adolph Hitler at the beginning of World War II. After taking refuge in America for a time, he returned to Germany to join the ill-fated bomb plot against Hitler.

Nelson has seen other movies about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and says he appreciates the painstaking method in which Bonhoeffer was produced. "Doblmeier has been committed to producing something as close to a documentary as possible," Nelson said. "The film includes both Bonhoeffer's family life and his work in the church and also his five-year involvement in the resistance movement in Germany."

Bonhoeffer opens today (Friday) with showings at 6:15 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. Saturday shows are at 4:15 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. On Sunday, the shows are set for 4:15 p.m. and 6:15 p.m. From March 31 through April 3, the movie will also be shown twice each day. General ticket prices are $8. For more information, call 312-846-2600 or visit www.artic.edu/webspaces/siskelfilmcenter.

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