Here’s today’s dispatch from the crossroads of faith, media and culture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgEjjxmBCSc

Yellow Day, a highly-anticipated debut film from Providence Film Partners, will release in select theaters Christmas 2015.  The only faith-based and family film this holiday, Yellow Day is a movie parents and kids can enjoy together.  It is wildly imaginative and fun, beautifully blending high-quality animation and live action, and based on true stories of how God’s grace changes people’s lives. 

Yellow Day chronicles a young man’s life-changing journey through the Yellow Day, a miraculous day where the world is revealed as seen through the eyes of God.  On this day, the young man witnesses astonishing miracles, each one teaching a lesson in faith, hope, or love.  This man must learn from these miracles and confront his fears, if he is to complete his journey and be reunited with his lost love.

 Yellow Day’s powerful true stories come from Camp Grace, an actual camp in Mobile, Alabama, where much of the movie takes place. It was Krisanna Roberts, a real Camp Grace camper, whose incredible spirit, creative nature, and true story inspired Yellow Day’s title.  At fifteen years old, Krisanna, who battled cancer all her life, found she only had six months left to live.  For these remaining months, the doctors asked her to name a color for days she felt well.  She chose yellow.  Her remaining days were almost completely “lived in yellow,” and she was known for wishing others a “bright sunshiny yellow day.” A “Yellow Day” is not a day where everything goes right, but a day when one chooses grace and joy no matter what happens. 

Krisanna’s “bright sunshiny yellow day” is just one of many true stories featured in Yellow Day.  The other powerful stories come from incredible people in the special needs, chronic illness, and domestic abuse communities.  The result is a film rich in lessons for children on subjects that are potentially delicate and even hard to discuss.  Yellow Day provides an opening for parents to talk about these issues with their children in a compelling and meaningful way. 

 Yellow Day was produced by a community helping meet the demand for imaginative, positive, and affirming family entertainment.  The film was produced out of Mobile, Alabama, with participation from hundreds of volunteers in the church and charitable communities, coming together with the desire to provide something good.  Yellow Day was funded by a business-faith community, who above all, wanted a quality production to give healing to our culture.

 “This production is not about any singular person, but the incredible and dedicated community that came together to make Yellow Day possible,”said writer and executive producer G.P. Galle, Jr. 

 “For us,”said producer Blake Hester, “Yellow Day is just the first step towards what we hope to be a new type of entertainment culture, one in which creative minds can flourish without compromise, and people of all ages can enjoy quality entertainment which combines captivating stories with messages of faith.”

 “Yellow Day is a step-up in this genre of filmmaking,”said Don Culwell, VP of Magnetic Dreams Animation, the company behind the lush animated scenes. “It’s also a story that’s been missing in the marketplace – the story of grace. To combine that with animation takes it up even another level.”

 The family film stars Drew Seeley(Another Cinderella Story, High School Musical), Lindsey Shaw (Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide, Pretty Little Liars), and Ashley Boettcher(Aliens in the Attic, Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street)

 Yellow Day is directed by Carl Lauten and produced by G.P. Galle Jr, Blake Hester, Robert Gros, and Marsha Posner Williams and written by G.P. Galle Jr.

John W. Kennedy is a writer/development consultant specializing in teleplays, screenplays and novelizations. He can be reached at john@jwkmedia.com.

Encourage one another and build each other up – 1 Thessalonians 5:11