All right, welcome back to Mission Light Podcast. Today we are excited to have Emanuel and Camille Kampouras on the show. Emanuel is the former chairman and CEO of American Standard with a remarkable career in business leadership. Now alongside his wife Camille, an accomplished actress and former Muppeteer, they've turned business to film production together. They've embarked on a powerful journey to bring the story of World War Two theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer to the big screen. Their film Bonhoeffer pastor spy assassin tells the tale of a man whose faith led him to resist Hitler and take a courageous stand for justice. Emmanuel Camille. Welcome to the show.

Welcome.

Nice to be

here. Good to be here. Thank you.

Wow. You have quite the career and quite the experiences behind you. Can you tell us what was it that first drew you guys to the Bonhoeffer story and why did you feel it was important to bring it to film today?

Well, I knew nothing about Bonhoeffer, but several years ago in fact, it was 2010, 2010, we read a book by Eric Metaxas, who has a biography of D. J. Bonhoeffer. In fact, you know, biographies are very difficult to read and I rarely read them, but this one read like a novel, which is rather interesting. And Eric is very, very good writer. And so I couldn't put the book down and we read this and we're very impressed and learned all about. You know did Bonhoeffer and what he did in his life and his impact. My first question then to Eric was why this should be a movie. It's so important and, you know, bring it to the world, if you will, to a movie several people in Hollywood approached Eric to get the rights to the, to the book and to make a movie. And so they were back and forth and nothing happened. I mean, you know, they, they just disappeared. So one day we decided to communalize it. Okay, well, what does it, you know, to make any movie, you need a very good script. So I said, how much will it take? And how long will it take for us to find a good screenwriter and write a script, and then we can deliver that. And Eric, and you can go and make a movie out of it. Well, famous last words. 12 years later it took us 12 years to get here. And the reason is that we went through, you want to,

Oh, we went through three, it took us seven years to get a script. And, you know, it's, it's funny because we thought, How hard can it be to do a script? It's maybe a year or so. And I had worked in so much television where scripts are being popped out every week. You know, they're quick. But a movie's a totally different animal. Totally different thing. So for seven years, we had, we hired seven people. We went through three screenwriters, two script doctors, lots of consultants, three directors that had input. I mean, it was just you know, we began to realize that this was a calling from God. It wasn't just something that we thought we'll just quickly, you know, do. And then passed it on to, you know, You know, Eric or somebody that he knows to do the movie that God is really calling us because during that seven years we had to steward this project that many people were coming and going in our lives. So, if you can imagine each, each screenwriter did 10, 12, Versions, you know, drafts and then eventually our third screenwriter is who we ended up with and and it took him to two years to do it

to complete the script

to complete the different drafts. So let's start it out as something that we thought, Oh, we'll just do this for the Lord. And then, because one of the things about reading the book, we were so taken by the book, which dealt so much on his faith and his increasing intimacy with Christ, his increasing loneliness and and his prison years. And we thought, you know, gosh, if, if, You give this book to Hollywood, they'll just gut the faith, which is what they're used to doing with stories about people of faith. And so we thought, well, why don't we try our hand? We had no idea what we were getting into. It's actually good that God doesn't tell you at the beginning of the journey, you know, how many twists and turns there'll be.

Trying to fund just a script. We ended up working hard and try to develop a movie and become producers at the end anyhow, so that's

never produced a film now we could produce anything we got our teeth cut on it. So anyway,

wow. And I'm listening to this and I'm not normally a person who. picks up numbers and things like that. But, you know, we were talking offline about some of the complications and some of the challenges we even had one, prior to this with some of our audio, right. But I hear seven years, it took seven years. And I feel like that's a symbolic time within the biblical. And then and then, and then I look at it and it took, it was your third. Person. So seven and three are very biblical.

Yeah, we thought it off. Yeah. And actually the screenwriters of Christian, the third one. And when we finally greenlit the movie, he said it's been seven years since I've done a movie. His last movie was Sully. He wrote the movie Sully, you know, about the plane landing on the Hudson. That was starring Tom Hanks. And his name is Todd Kormanicki. He's our screenwriter. He became our director. And

so

that was wonderful. I thought, well, Todd, seven years, it's it's time. It's the Lord's number of completion.

I love how you'd said too, that you, you began to notice that it was a calling and it wasn't just something that you wanted to do. It wasn't just something that I know it became a calling to you. And I think there's an awareness when something as, you know, as we speak to listeners to when, when there's something in the calling, it's very different than just doing it to do it or to complete it, or because it's a pet project, something you want to do. And so I, I love that you guys. Knew was a calling, and it's probably knowing that it was a calling that saw you through some of those, those challenges through multiple years and multiple screenwriters, that you had to stay true to the core, stay true to the calling that God had put on your life. So let's. Let's keep working through this. So seven years and now, it also took us several years in terms of production as well. And that took place over in the UK. Can you share with us how those next couple of years in terms of production?

Interesting thing is that as you know, when you make a movie. Depending where you film, you get an incentive from the country that you're filming or the city or the state or the country filming. And that's very important because typically the incentives are about 20 to 25% of your total spend. You get a benefit from that. So we were gonna film in, in the Czech Republic where it's really the Hollywood of the, of Europe. And as we were prepared to go there and what happened is just as we were about to go there, the Ukraine war broke out and the Czech Republic, the government took away all the incentives for movies because they want to, apparently they were going to transfer these funds for the war to help the Ukrainians. Anyhow, that was what we were told. So just as we're about to film, we had to stop because we, you know, in our budget, we had calculated the refund that we're going to get from the agreement. From the country. And fortunately we were able to we changed, we, we had a very good, one of the top executive producers in the country, his name's Ralph winter. He went around scout and said, well, he said, we can't find any space in Italy. We couldn't find any capacity in France. So he said, let's say we ended up in Belgium. So we found someone in Belgium, but that was not enough. And he said, well, you have to film it both in Belgium and in Ireland. So from the original project strategies to filming in Czech, we ended up filming in two countries. And the reason is because Belgium only offered about 40 percent of, of, of 60 percent of the budget, which is a net 24%. So that was not enough for us. We needed more. So whereas an island completed that. So we used two countries, which made it very complicated, accounting wise. So we filmed 31 days in Belgium and 11 days in Ireland.

And another huge obstacle, just before we got the countries all sorted out, COVID hit. So that was, that delayed us a year and a half to two years. And some of our investors, we had raised the money, which had taken 10 years. And some of our investors, You know, they wanted their money back because every theater in the world closed. So doing investing in something that was going to end up in theater didn't seem like a bright idea. So there is movie

investment. Movies really make money. But so the fact that we have this problem, you know, the COVID situation.

Just when we were set to go again, the Ukrainian war broke out. And so that's why the production was prolonged. It took us then post production was difficult. We had lots of challenges in post production, so that took a year. And then to get a distributor. So the whole process has been 12 years. And but we're very excited that we have, you know, we are going to see this in theaters soon. And the timing, when you look at the timing, had we done this movie 10 years ago, God's timing is just so amazing. I mean, 10 10 years ago, when we started really gearing it all up and raising money, there was, we were watching. And concern. You're very concerned about the anti Semitism growing in in Europe. I mean, I remember talking amongst herself going, look what God is doing. He's taking the same prophet from 70 years ago, 80 years of talking to the same content and about the same subject. Isn't God awesome. And then here we are now. And it's on our college campuses, you know, really grow

and become that is that's so beautiful. A little bit. You kept going despite these, not just minor obstacles, but very major obstacles of location of COVID of a war. Those are, those are not minor obstacles by any means. So how did you both continue to just persevere through the process, through all these. mountains and valleys that you had to traverse during the time. I mean,

I think for, we really began to see that this was the Lord's will. And so we became very surrendered. So every time there was an obstacle, we had a lot, you know, at first we were very anxious, you know, like eight years ago, right? And then as the years went on, we would say, okay, Lord, this is another major obstacle. As you know, we're completely surrendered. If you want this project back, if you want us to give it to somebody else, if you want us to leave it for whatever you want and then you know a door would open something would happen a person would come along an investor would come drop out of the sky and would just move us forward again. You know, suddenly we went from standing still to going further down the road. And this kept happening. You know, even when we went to do the movie, casting, I mean, it's a whole other, you know, huge hurdle and obstacle. We never thought we would have German actors. We were focused on England. We were focused on theatrical, you know, theater actors who had the gravitas to play these, these classical roles. It's a theater piece. And could not, and of course we had to, we had to first cast Dietrich, because if you don't cast Dietrich, you don't have a film, and you need a very dynamic Dietrich. And we could not find a kind, a man who was not too old, you know, not at the age of his death at 39, but could also handle the younger, Who had the mixture of gravitas, but excitement and there were times Dietrich was arrogant. There were times he was really kind and, and we just wasn't happening. And we were praying and

yeah, the director called a friend of his in a movie maker in Germany. And said, you know, I need a young actor. Can you suggest one? And he said, there's only one. And that is Jonas Dastler. And said, okay, let's make him an offer. So casting directors talked to his agent and send him the script. The script, the agent liked it. And the agent called back, said, Jonas Dastler is not reading. He's already working very hard and he needed a rest. So he was Yeah,

not reading means he's not accepting scripts. Not

accepting scripts. Yeah,

I get it. So our casting people were excellent. They're British. They've been in the business 40 years. They said, well, would you read it? Because if you get the agent to read it and they like it, that's a good, that's, that's, you're in the door, sort of, or you're almost in the door. So she loved it and she sent it to Jonas and he was not happy. He said, look, I'm not reading. I need a break. And then, His grandmother passed away. She, she was ill. He, he knew this would happen and he was very close to her, and she had asked the family to sing a song at, at her funeral. So Jonas goes, sings a song, looks down down, and it says lyrics by Dietrich Bonoff. Offer. And it was just such a divine said, you know, I think to read this the script. And then when we had our lead actor who was German, and he, he did a wonderful, wonderful audition. Then we started dealing with his agent and other German act agents. And pretty soon we were getting more German actors from their agents. We, we also cast in Ireland and in, and in UK, but all of the leads turned out to be German. So the mother is German. The father is German. Niemöller. I don't know if you know Niemöller. He's an amazing actor. He's well known. August deal. Did you ever see the hidden life? I think I

may have seen that one. Yeah,

he's historic. That one. He plays the priest that, that stands up to the Nazis or the farmer that stands up to the Nazis anyway. So with lots of German actors, which was again, you know, nothing we envisioned, but he is truly a wonderful. During the perfect Bonhoeffer,

you know, that's something that really stuck out to me personally, having, having viewed the film and looked at the, the cast see, I was an exchange student in Germany when I was in high school and I still have a number of different friends.

We'll be able to edit that. Yeah, we'll edit that

out. Problem. So yeah, that was one of the things that stood out to me was like German cast. It's because I was an exchange student in Germany when I was in high school. And I, and we still have. Several relationships in in Germany ourselves. And so when I saw that German cast, it was like, wow, this is so real. And then when I heard. Them speaking English, but it was with that German act and it was just, for me it was very authentic and very, very real. It just hit me in a different way and kind of adding some personal experiences to some of this about kind of the, the Holocaust and what took place that teacher Bon Halford made such a stand against was, my wife and I, we actually were able to visit Dachau, which is a, which is a concentration camp. But we actually visited there with German friends. And so it was just a memorable experience to me, walking shoulder to shoulder, two Americans, two Germans, walking through this and just looking at the atrocity of what took place. And that was a, an experience I will never, I'll never forget. So I want to, I want to Ask you, you know, you kept, you mentioned the timeliness of the release of this movie and how, you know, just you pushed through so many different obstacles and you see God's timing in it. What do you feel is a the relevant theme or what, what themes do you see in the movie that are very, very relevant and pertinent to what is happening today around the world.

So there are many there are many, as you probably realize, God does, works on so many different fronts, so firstly, what Bonhoeffer did is he, his big first battle was with the church to get them calling them back. They were being co opted by Hitler. They were not, you know, they had the trappings of faith, but didn't have a real faith. And he had seen that in Harlem. He had spent a year in Harlem and he had seen people suffering who had a real vibrant faith, the faith informed their worldview, informed their actions. It was faith plus action. So I think, I think. Our first theme was of course we indict the church. We show the colossal moral failure of the church, but we also saw what show, what a Christian should be in the life of Bonhoeffer and what the response should have been. So today it's similar. If you look at the West, if you look at Europe and place within America, the church is not as vibrant. It's not, you know, all in for Christ. It's not what Bon Hopper said. He says, when Jesus. calls a man, he bids him come and die. You know, it's not that surrendered church all in, no matter the cost. And that was, that just seemed that was dear to our heart. We, we have an online training sort of a seminary called Bible Mesh. I don't know if you know that, but that's like a, that's what we founded and that's our day job. And, you know, we see it all over the world. We see biblical illiteracy in the church growing. That was our first thing, you know, to wake up the church do our small part. Do you want to mention something in the

As you've seen the movie, I mean, the church in Germany at the time was 40 million evangelicals in the church in Germany, and the issue is that had the church had the courage to speak out, perhaps the Holocaust would not have happened, but they all cowered, they all wanted to, you know, they all cowered Fed back, they went inwardly, they were, and even the confessing church, although it started up with many, many pastors joining it, many, many slowly dropped out because they were afraid again of their, for their own safety and their own comfort, if you will. So, I mean, essentially everybody in Germany sort of cowed and gave up and, and stopped even doing, being, being Responding to what Bonhoeffer said that, you know, you have to go out and and help the victims of the state. And if the state doesn't, if the state does not do that, then you put a spoke in the wheels of the state so that you can stop it. In other words, you have to do physical, you have to be physically protest, physically act and to stop this Terrible you know, the government when he was doing the legit past all these illegitimate laws. And no one, no one protested. Except Bonhoeffern is very few.

Yeah, I mean, it became fewer and fewer. You know, at first it was 7, 000 at the beginning of confessing church pastors. Many of them did go off because they were sent to the war, sent to camps. But as it became costlier, there were fewer people willing to be as courageous as Bonhoeffer. So, I think courage is a big you know, having the courage of your convictions, you know, and that only comes with an intimacy with Christ, I think. If you study his life, when he got to Finkenbaugh, which was his underground seminary, He taught them to spend a lot of time alone with God and time in community with each other.

So,

there was that, and I think for Bonhoeffer, he increasingly had time alone with God. You know, I mean, he got to a point where he was saying, the church is only the church when it exists for others. He called Jesus the man for others and he didn't mean just Christians, I mean, It's for members of the church and non members, you know

in fact, he is many sayings, as you're probably aware, is faith, faith without action is, is no faith at all. Silence in the face of evil is evil. Not to speak is to speak and not to act is to act. So he does the famous statements, which, you know, essentially tells you what, what he, how he felt about this whole situation.

So getting back to your question, we, we hope to raise up men and women, young and old, that will be all in for Jesus. Pay the ultimate price if you are called to and what we love about our actor is that he's young. He's about the age Dietrich was when Dietrich started speaking out and so we hope that it'll really inspire young people. You know, this world is really a very different world than I grew up in. You know, I think people has been much more unleashed. It was always there, but it was more hidden. It's really all around us. It's everywhere. And I think the world that young people are growing up in, they really need a real faith. They don't need to just go to church and, you know have, have a cappuccino and fun times. They, they need to know Jesus. personally, and they need to spend time in the word, word, because this is a, this is a dark world they're growing up into. So, you know, we hope that it'll, it'll bring people back to God, or if you don't know God, it'll get you to start the journey that Bonhoeffer started, you know? I mean, he really, he really became a Christian. He's, he was a theologian before he studied. He had a PhD. Yeah.

Yeah. He had the knowledge. So when knowledge had, from knowledge had to, to, to heart, I mean, when that transfer where he was very knowledgeable, he was a brilliant theologian, but when he came to the States and went to the Abyssinian Baptist church, this is where the, you know, it clicked for him and from, from, from from head knowledge, it went to heart knowledge.

Yeah. He said from a theologian, he became a Christian.

Yeah. Yeah.

And it's in the movie as well, I think. You know, we hope this movie addresses racial reconciliation because when he was in Harlem, it was the time of the dark, cruel time of segregation in America. And here he becomes dear friends with these people, and you know, he's white, they're black, he ends up going to the church for a year. He ends up teaching in their Sunday school. So you just see how Christ breaks those boundaries down. Of course, it addresses anti Semitism. which is so vile. So there's I think many themes in this movie that could speak to people.

There was a scene in the movie that really just, it almost kind of made my, my hair rise on my arms where he's, he's, he's speaking and he's teaching and he says what everyone else is thinking and feeling. He's preaching, he's teaching in this church and and, and then he says it. And at one point he stands against the evil and he speaks it and everyone begins to clap and the, and the kind of the oppressors kind of move, move out and they leave and, and there's this, I don't want to reveal too much, but it's just, it stuck out that it takes one person to stand up and speak truth into a situation

because there's

so many people that agree with something and there's so many issues that we could apply that to now. But there's, it takes one person to stand up and say, look, this is wrong, this is not right. The word says this, and we're not moving from this, regardless of, regardless of the outcome. And once that's spoken into the atmosphere, there's so many people that will just say, yes, we are, we are so, we, we are in so much agreement with that. So, but there was this heavy persecution, and it took boldness. And I'm just wondering, You know, the American Church has really been free in a lot of ways from persecution. What do you feel, believers in America, can take from this film about potential persecution that may be coming?

Yeah, it for sure is coming. It's already here and it's not the kind of persecution you have, maybe in China. But so if you look at how Bonhoeffer and people who live in difficult or communist countries, how do they fight persecution and how they fight it? If you know, the real, you know, ones that have that joy and peace, they are detached from this world. They're

focused. on Christ, on things above, not the next world, but things above that are more noble and peace and, you know, they're contending, as Jude says, they're contending for the gospel. It's not just this fun thing they do on Sundays, it's their life. And I think that's what the American church, you know, has to, that's, and there is a remnant, I'm not saying there's not people like that in America, there's a great remnant here, of course, but that is what you know, in the end of his life in prison, and we use it, we, we have it in the movie, he says, you know, what we need is, religionless Christianity. You remember that? He said, we had we had Christianity without Christ. We had religion without Christ. What we need is Christ without religion. I

think that you know, it's what Jesus said when some churches are lukewarm, right? And some are really fervent. It's what kind of a church are you attending? Are you attending one that's passionate about Christ? Yes. Because that's That's what makes the difference in persecution, is if you're detached from this world.

Yes, and I, especially right now as we've brought up before, just the increasing anti Semitism. Even since over a year ago, October 7th of 2023, you know, Israel was attacked. And ironically, there's much persecution against the Jewish people. There are states turning their back on the country of Israel. There are petitions. There are, protests going on, even on American college campuses that are saying end the genocide. And there's all this propaganda against the Jewish people yet again. Only how many generations since World War II. And, you know, just it's so important as you said, anti Semitism is vile. And I even want to add to that anti Semitism is anti Christ. If you are not for the Jewish people, you are against Jesus himself because he was born into this world as a Jew. And, you know, As believers, we need to stand with them and show them the kindness of God and show them that without them, we wouldn't exist. The church would not exist. I love how that is shown in this film. It is so powerful and just showing Bonhoeffer and his colleagues compassion towards the Jewish people. Even at one point in the film, asking a man, what is your name?

Yes,

what is your name? He was restoring his identity. Yes, that's amazing. Yes, they had slapped all these stars on people and just gave them numbers. You know, they shaved their heads. They did these horrible things, but he looked at him and said, what is your name? Yeah,

that's a great scene and the line that and the responses. What's the only thing left of my name is a sound in my head. That's a great line. So that scene, so interesting getting back to anti Semitism. We don't have a lot of time to go into it in the movie, but we show a little bit of it. So the dirty little secret is that the Lutheran church, as many churches in that time, were anti Semitic for the most part, and they considered Jews Christ killers. So, and, you know, Niemöller had a little touch of that at the beginning. That's why he gives his speech, you know, I didn't stand up for the Jews, not nearly, you know, Soon enough. And Bonhoeffer had a little bit of that, only because that's, you know, when he was young, you don't see it in the movie, but he, his first defense is for the Jews who are converted, because the Aryan laws are going to attack them too. But what you see is, as the Lord works on his heart, Bonhoeffer becomes, as you said, so compassionate, so loving to the Jews, and eventually he gives his life for them. And so it is a revelation that God gave him, and it, and Our churches need that, to have that revelation and to show that kind of love, the love that lays down their life. And that, that is another theme I hope you know, we had a really terrible couple comments online saying this is just Jewish propaganda. You know, we look at each other and say, they must think that you can do a movie in like eight months or something, you know, October 7th, let's do a movie real quick. No, it's not Jewish propaganda, it started 12 years ago, but it is, God's timing is what it is.

What I thought was really powerful too, we were talking about, you Just loving, loving your neighbor. A lot of people that are different and they're the powerful scene too, where he's in New York and they go to rent a room and this, this hotel owner is very rude to them. But. Later on there's this kind of tongue in cheek comment from Dietrich where he says, man, I'm so glad we don't have that sort of persecution or, or whatever in, in, in Germany.

Yeah.

And, you know, you kind of as a, as a viewer, you know, oh man, it's coming in so many different ways.

and just so you know, that's a real line. That was in a letter that he wrote. That's why we put it in the movie. Because Dietrich actually said he was just, he could not believe the segregation and the hatred for Blacks in America. He couldn't believe it. Because you know, he just thought, this is the land of the free, the home of the brave. And he puts that line in one of his letters. He says, thank God we have nothing like this. And you

know, not too long after that, It changes.

This is why when he went, because of his exposure to this whole situation, African, you know, Blacks in America, when he went back, he immediately saw and began to see the, he was the first one to See this happening to the Jews because it started the same rhetoric, same propaganda, same. And so he immediately now his family said, No, no, no, no. I mean, they're all having a discussion. Say, I think you're exaggerating about this. I mean, his own family and friends, but he was the first one to see it. And this is why he was the first one to start speaking out of it before anybody else did.

And, you know, very soon he had seen, you know, the signs in America were like no blacks allowed, right? They would have signs like white only. And then very soon he saw no Jews allowed. He saw the same carving out of a people group based on race. So that's why he was one of the first to speak out. Yeah.

I'm so glad you brought that up because I think that's such a, a powerful Experience for him having been over in the U. S. And he has this encounter with persecution and also racism. But what I really think is important today as well is that He began to understand to love his neighbor, somebody that was different than him, you know, looked physically different, that believes in different things. And then he goes back and, you know, based off some of that experience, I'm sure begins to stand up and defend people that are not. Indeed, really like him, but he recognizes it from from that experience. And I think that's a really powerful lesson for today because we are so isolated in our media because algorithms learn our personal preferences. You know, we associate with people that are like us and, you know, and, and we hear all this feed that comes in and just gives that confirmation bias of our own opinion being right.

Right.

That hearing differing opinions and differing and understanding you know, as you know, in business and in your own media experience, that we need to be around other people to get their different insights and their opinions, because we don't have it all right together. And I think that's a really powerful message that we need to be around people that are different, you know, it's okay. It's okay. And it's actually really good for us to be around other people.

Yeah, it is. It absolutely is.

Absolutely.

And God loves it. Everyone and so we should too, you know, we're so We're so far sometimes from the father's heart, you know

absolutely as you have gone through this whole process of production and You know and filming and well the casting and then the filming and then now all this kind of Getting ready to release it. Surely you've had some personal. Wow, you know aha moments or these personal things that you've drawn from this whole journey of producing the film. What wisdom have you gained in your own personal life that you're applying

well, I mean, it's dependence on God, frankly, that's, we have to depend on God. And, you know making a movie is one thing. Then having someone distributed is another.

That was a mirror. Yeah. And that was a miracle

because, you know, we're trying, we tried to approach the major distributors like Lionsgate, Warner Brothers, all these people, big distributors, and no one would give us a light of day. Yeah,

actually Lionsgate was interested, not in this phase, they were interested early on. We tried to go back to them when we had done the movie, and we were just kind of knocking on the door, and then a broker put us together with Angel Studios. And we said, well, let's talk to Angel Studios, but we're still knocking on the door of Lionsgate. And then we had to go

through quite a process with Angel Studios, because they have a, they have a guild, and you have to go through their guild, And they vote on your movie essentially. And you need to get people about 60 percent positive vote saying that, you know, they

would be disappointed if Angel didn't do this movie. Very disappointed. And it's hard to get people to say they'd be very disappointed. But you had

to score about 60 percent for that. And fortunately we did. In fact, we went up to 70%.

Yeah.

So this is what got us in. So. We were able to, you know, sign a contract with. Angel Studios for the release of this movie.

I mean, one of the, and so one of the things we really, because there's been so many, we could really write a book about the obstacles with investors and then investors that were shady and then ones that wanted something from us. That was always very strange for us. Like what? You want your granddaughter to be in the film? I mean, just crazy things. But because of, of, of all these obstacles. We, it's, you kind of learn, it's just a process of maturity, you know, you kind of learn to be anxious for nothing, which is what, you know, Paul said, be anxious for nothing. You learn to surrender, you really learn dependence on God. You, you know, We should all walk in total dependence because you don't even know if you're going to make it the next minute, but we don't we walk in kind of a, you know, we're kind of independent. And when we really need God, we go to him. And this was for everything. You know, we just started praying about every phone call every day, every on the set. Many things went wrong on the set. You know, our prisoner bus broke down. You know, and I was like, what? You know, we had to fix that. So fixing a 1940s bus is not the easiest thing in the world. You can't just pull into a gas station, but anyway So I think I think Walking in just dependence. It's such a freeing wonderful place to be but it's For some reason, it's hard for man to get there, you know,

and we're very fortunate because it was during COVID time and, and we're protected. No one, no one suffered COVID. We didn't lose any days because of COVID. So fortunately, it was another miracle because everybody else we're hearing other, other companies were having problems, but we didn't have.

It's not every day we would wake up and we could only, we had 41 days to shoot. And we didn't, we couldn't afford to just miss two or three days, you know, like, oh, it's raining, we can't shoot. So, and we had terrible weather, it was bitter cold, we had snow, we had rain, we had everything. And every day we would just wake up and we would be so dependent on God that nothing would happen. We did have people come down with COVID, but they weren't any of our stars. They were like the, the, you know, someone who's working in a wardrobe or something. And it was, it was a walk of a walk of faith and independence. I think that's one of the personal things that we experienced that was, after a while you, you have such joy. It develops when you're really dependent on God. It's just a peaceful, joyful place to be.

I just am amazed that I'm hearing this story, you know, and we're kind of, we talked earlier about the seven and the three and, you know, but but as I'm, as I'm looking and I'm hearing your stories and I'm hearing the different conversations coming from you, I'm just, I'm just amazed at how God brought this to pass. There are two individuals and a team, I'm sure, but there are people who took it on and said, this is a calling from God. And I see how God knitted this together. And Camille, your media experience and just kind of behind the cameras and all this and understanding some of the intimacy and what those details that no one else would really fully understand, you bring such richness and depth and experience to it from that side. And then, Manuel, you bring, you bring the bottom line. And we heard that earlier, you were sharing some of the details and the percentages and you got in your element about how Czech Republic gave you this. And, that's what helped bring this to pass is because over multiple years. You have to balance a budget. You have to keep those expenses low. You have to be creative with how you bring this together and ultimately, years past when you started, it's coming to fruition. And it's coming to fruition because of two people who use their God-given gifts and talents and experiences and educations. To bring something to pass that other people might have said, COVID, I'm outta here, or, you know, this or that. But you guys said, no, this is from God. We're gonna see it through regardless and. We're so thankful for people who are living a missional life who are doing that doing that and being obedient to the father's call on their lives. And we just want to say thank you. And, so well done. I'm so excited to see this. Release soon. And it's just amazing. And yes, so we wanna honor your time. I wanna make sure that we're honoring your time, but we'd also be remiss to not give our our listeners the the opportunity to hear a little bit of your, you know, just wisdom from your own respective personal experiences. Emmanuel, you were the CEO of American Standard and the Boardman. And I mean, this is a, a multi-billion dollar international company. And you led this through multiple challenges, different types of, you know, Wall Street challenges. And you, you navigated this into a very, very, very profitable company. And I'm just wondering, in a world that's very different, that's experiencing so much uncertainty, can you speak to people speak to listeners, speak to those who are wanting to, to lead, to have a voice? Today, but are living in the midst of uncertainty that we've never really had before. How, how does somebody lead? How does somebody take, take what they're called to do and see it through in today's situation? Can you speak to that as Emmanuel, former CEO of American standard.

Well, I think, first of all, you need to inject and make sure that your team, I mean, obviously, you know, when we employed 54, 000 people and all that, right? And but the key thing to, to try and so that people will follow you because you want people to follow. Is that you have to exemplify integrity in everything we did. We're transparent. We never try to pull apart. We never told any lies to the team. I mean, we had to be very open and very focused and and we had, you know, very good strategic planning. Everybody was on board. Everybody had to commit to the program to the various issues. strategies that we were implementing in various parts of the world because we also had three product lines. One was plumbing, one is air conditioning, and then was automotive. So we were fortunate. We had a very good team, but that team came together and we were all of the same, you know, we all focused on the same thing and integrity was the key. So that you have to make sure that people trust you. So you have to exemplify integrity in everything you did, you say, and also you had to be out there promoting this and showing it. I mean, I spent half my half my time traveling the world, visiting the various operations around the world. You know, and, and, and, and try to promote this and help and, and, and congratulate or they didn't do their work admonished, but it's always been truthful to the people. And that, that generates, yeah, that generates trust in, in your organization, which is critical, especially when you're going out to difficult times, we went through a major recession in 1991 So anyhow, that's, but

you know that imagine if. Christians everywhere had integrity, you know, where you say, if you work with a Christian, it's the best person on earth to work for. And that's kind of what we wanted. We wanted every single person on the set. If you, if you look at the credit, did you watch the credit? Did you sit through those? We

saw, we saw a long list of them. We didn't get all their way through, but we did

see a significant portion. There were 899.

Yes.

And we had made, we had made a I mean, in our heart, we wanted to just, that every person that would work with us on the set they would see integrity, that we would treat them. And actually they all mentioned that. They're like, Oh, this is the best movie to work on. Now I have to give a shout out to two people on our team who are, who are Christians. One is our lawyer, John Scanlon, and a producer. And they helped us with that same, you know having that same environment on the, on the set. And of course the director, director is key. Todd Karmannicki is a Christian. He's also wrote it and he. had a lovely environment on the, on the set where people, he was very approachable. He spent time with every actor, even if you only had one line. And that's the, you know, he, we all wanted them to see Christ in us, you know? And that was that was a priority for us. And it was a priority when I was working at Muppets, you know, I was the only, I was like the church lady and I just felt Muppets was a mission field. I feel everything we do is a mission field. So we, we need to be sought. They, you know, they need to see the Lord. There's a line in the movie where Dietrich says, you know, I've realized that people don't hear what's preached in the pulpit as much as they hear what's spoken in the street. And in a sense, it's true. It's really your life. That not your platitudes that you might speak to someone. So

well said. I wanted to come back and ask you one question about the media, but I do want to kind of emphasize what Emmanuel have said just in terms of how do we stand today? And how do we lead today? And I think what you said was very, very important. We saw that in the film as well as integrity, you know, people will follow a person with integrity in a day and age where there's so much gray, right? Well, you define right, you define what people know that we know right and wrong. There's an intuitive knowledge that God put that inside our hearts. And and so I think it's so important what you said look, it's not just me, it's the team, it's we, it's not I, it's the we. And I think that from a, from a leadership standpoint, that's so important is that you don't do anything alone, especially nowadays. And then in addition to that is, look, you got to do what you say, and you got to follow through and you got to have an integrity. And so I think that those are very, very valuable lessons and very important, especially in today's day and age where, everything is shifting. So, applying that Camille in media today, that. Anybody that stands up for, you know, integrity and stands up for Christianity is almost being silenced, right? And, and I just wonder, what would you say to the listener that's in the room? That's in media or who has a voice nowadays on. How do people go about speaking up and using the position in the platform they've been given, whether that's at their work, a job or in the media or whatever? How do people stand up and and use their position, whether that's in media or whatever and speak what God tells them to speak.

Well, I think it goes back to what Bonhoeffer exhibits and that's. You start with your walk with God and then you have to have courage. You have to trust him and your eyes have to be on, on him. You know, I love when I was at Muppets, I was the smallest Muppeteer. I actually wasn't a Muppeteer when I auditioned, but I was a comedic actress. I had lots of characters, lots of voices, and And God was part of the Red Sea. I had an audition with them and they drained me, which was surprising for everybody. I mean, the size of my hand is the smallest hand and the Muppeteers are big and it's a male dominated field. And so I, I think that when I, when I was there, I really wanted everyone to I wanted them to see, because they had all kinds of stereotypes of Christianity. And they were already decided that these are either bigots or narrow minded or whatever. And God gave me opportunities every day to serve them, to be a light, to be concern for them. You know, in, in, as a performer, you are very, you know, me centered. You're me focused because you're the product and you're what's your selling. And, and Christ kept telling me to be, you know, he kept impressing upon me to be Christ centered. And then, you know, you're going to have challenges and you're going to have to decide am I going to exhibit fear of man or fear of God? It's a lifelong journey learning, I think, to just fear God, because that's, what's going to silence you is if you fear man, or you fear losing your job. I mean, One thing as an actress. I was so used to being broke and I was so used to living hand to mouth that that was not a big threat to me. Oh, I may lose my job and what am I going to do then? You know, I was so used to living like that and I would just go back to waitressing or something. So I used to tell people at church, well, my bags are always packed, you know, God puts food on my table, not, not Jim Henson or not the Muppets. And, you know, there were times I had to speak up because of things I didn't feel comfortable doing. And, and that's when you that's when you kind of decide, are you the kind of Christian that is all in with God? You know, I love the verse, delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. What happens is learning to delight yourself in him is, is the key. I think it's, it's how do you not just know him, but delight in him. And then the desires of your heart change. So you get them, you know, it's the, he does a whole different thing. Yeah. But yeah, I think I think it all has to do with. Your relationship with him work on that and the rest will come easier,

as we really close this wonderful opportunity. The movie is about to come up. Yes. Yes. What do you each hope that the viewer will take from this movie? Apply to their life?

Well, first I would say I, I just hope that people will go to the theater on opening weekend. This is when Hollywood decides are they gonna make more of these kinds of movies or less? Mm-Hmm. And the reason I think people should go is because. One thing that you'll take away is when you see this movie in a community experience. Bonhoeffer was about community, and sadly, people are watching movies on their iPhones alone. And so we hope that they'll go and they'll experience this as a church, as a community almost, you know. So that's the first thing, but then to take the takeaway. I know for you, you want to start? Well, I think we've said a lot of these things is to to be the kind of Christian that will walk with God no matter the cost.

Hopefully the message people take away that, that, you know, there's, that courage is an important element in life. Integrity and courage combination is very, very powerful and courage in particular. To stand up for what's right is so important. And I think that hopefully this movie will inspire people to do that. Young and old out of the movie and go out and say, really inspiration will be inspired by doing something whatever is in their mind and their heart. Let us hope that they will take it on and and and and essentially take the challenge, take the challenge and move forward. Whatever is in everybody's mind there. So that's the key is to encourage people to be brave.

So that's on the individual level. And we, we went to Greece, went to a monastery. We go every year to a monastery because the monks are friends of ours. And we stayed for two, two days and it kind of just alone. And we pray and we walk around with them and eat with them. And it kind of like recalibrates us because they're so simple and they're so unattached to this world. And the monk saw the movie. He didn't understand a lot of it. Yeah, and then I was like fast forwarding and then explaining and then showing him and explaining and at the end in Greek he says This is like one of the letters from Revelation 2, that's a letter to, it's a modern day letter to the church. And so when we heard that, we thought, okay, that's the other thing we hope will happen. Yeah, it was an

interesting, interesting impression that he came, he is with the abbot, and he said, you know, this is like a letter to the church in Revelation.

So we're hoping they'll start conversations, you know, just about their walk with God, things that are important. You know, what's really important and the world we're in and what's by place in it. And then the one thing that you'll see is Bonhoeffer always wanted to know God's will. God's will keeps changing. You know, it's not a set thing. It's every day. We have a, you should go visit your mother. That's his will for that day. And then there are bigger things. So we, we hope that it'll, it'll start that journey too.

Amazing listeners. We'll have the, those links for you in the show notes. What an amazing movie. What an amazing story. What an amazing life that you guys have. So creatively and powerfully brought to life. And a relevant story for today's day in age. So you heard them listeners go out, get the tickets, go opening weekend. We live in a world where we vote with our dollars, go vote, tell them you want more movies like this based off of Christian themes and based off of integrity. So listeners, be sure to go out there and support this movie. Camille Emanuel, thank you so much for your faithfulness and, and putting this out and seeing it through. And thank you for the wonderful opportunity to have you on the show.

It was a great pleasure meeting you and having these important discussions. Amen.