Michael O. Sajbel Interview at Christian Cinema

Christian Cinema has an interview with the enigmatic but prolific filmmaker Michael O. Sajbel.  While I still say that Sajbel really, really needs to do a director's commentary on his films(is he trying to emulate Spielberg?), mainly because his films have lots of elements that I would love to hear his thought process for doing.  Even more than Spielberg, Sajbel is almost completely absent from the extra features on his films, appearing only in the background of some of the documentary features.

Somewhat disappointingly, Sajbel does not talk much about what we consider his best work, his early pictures with Billy Graham's World Wide Pictures.  He mentions them in passing, but I would have loved to hear more about his early career.  He does trot out the same complaint that producer Rick Eldridge had about the Fox Faith association hurting the film and stereotyping it as a Christian film. 

Nevertheless, Sajbel does drop some good bits in the interview.  He mentions that his next film may(or may not) be an adaptation of Eli, a novel by Bill Myers that postulates a classic Christian sci-fi "What if" scenario:  What if Jesus was born in contemporary America instead of ancient Rome?  Sounds like it could be interesting, but I still think that Mark Millar did this one topic to death(so to speak) with his excellent  Chosen.

Sajbel does have a gift for self promotion that you have to give him credit for; consider this quote:  

"If you can find it see August 32nd on Earth and if you had only two films to see before you died see The Ultimate Gift and Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc.”

(Christian Cinema dot com)

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