Short Film: "Naaman and Elisha" (2013)

According to the Bible (2 Kings 5:15–19), Naaman was a commander of the army of Syria. He was a good commander and was held in favor because of the victory that God brought him. Yet Naaman was a leper. Naaman's wife had a servant girl from Israel who said that a prophet there would be able to heal him. Naaman tells his lord this and he is sent to Israel with a letter to the king. The king of Israel didn't know what to do, yet the Prophet Elisha sent a message to the King, advising that the King tell Naaman to come to see him. Elisha then told Naaman to go bathe in the Jordan seven times and he would be clean. Naaman was angry and would have left, but his servant asked him to try it and he was healed. A servant of Elisha, Gehazi, seeing Naaman being turned away from offering God offerings in thanksgiving for his healing, ran after him and falsely asked for clothing and silver for visitors. And the leprosy that had previously been on Naaman fell on Gehazi and remained in his descendants.

Short Film: "Maria of 11" (2018)

 

 

The following short film by Babis Kiliaris, titled "Maria of 11", is a tragic fictional story that portrays in a simple and beautiful way the true story of many who suffered with leprosy. The lead actress portrays a newly-married woman named Maria who was 21 years old when she was diagnosed with leprosy. Immediately after her diagnosis in 1946, she chooses to be admitted at the Lovokomeio of Chios, which served as a leper colony. In Room 11 she lived by herself for 11 years until she died and was buried in grave number 11. To add to the tragedy, she dies just a year before a cure is found for leprosy (Hansen's disease).

Short Film: "Christmas Anti-Fable" (2017)

Christmas Anti-Fable

Directed by: Efthimis Chatzis
Script Adaptation: Fr. Constantinos Stratigopoulos
Short Story: Ilias Voulgarakis / “A Decent Trinity”
Music: Evanthia Rempoutsika
Executive Production: View Master Films
Produced by: TECHNAVA s.a.
Genre: Sci-fi/Drama
Running Time: 26 mins
Initial Release: September 19, 2017

Charles Dickens, Marley's Chain and Theophylact of Ochrid

By John Sanidopoulos

 

When Jacob Marley makes his ghostly visit to Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens describes him as a transparent spirit bound by a chain. He describes the chain specifically as follows: "The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel." When during their conversation Scrooge asks trembling why he was fettered, Marley replied: "I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?” Then Marley reveals to Scrooge that the chain he bears is much more ponderous: "Or would you know the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!"

Chris Farley and his Demons

 

On December 18, 1997, one of the most famous and beloved comedians Chris Farley was found dead inside his rented 60th-floor high-rise apartment on Chicago’s Miracle Mile. He was only 33 years old, like his hero John Belushi.

In the days before his death, it is said that he would have put Nero to shame, binge eating, binge drinking, binge everything. He was seen drinking at a bar called the Crobar and at a bar called Karma, at the Cheesecake Factory, at the Berghoff Cafe and at the Hunt Club with his brother John, where he did a Wolfman Jack impression and let strippers drape themselves over his body.