“The world is our house.” This phrase used by early Jesuit Jerome Nadal appropriately begins a section on Jesuit work with indigenous communities, the special focus of the 2017 Yearbook of the Society of Jesus.
Those not able to watch “Ignacio de Loyola: Soldier, Sinner, Saint” in theatres will soon be able to watch it in their homes with the commercial release of the DVD on February 18 in the Philippines and in spring in North America.
Produced by Jesuit Communications Foundation (JesCom) Philippines, the feature film is a modern look at the story of St Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, often called “The Saint of Second Chances.”
This year’s Puskat Film Festival received five times more entries than last year, when it was launched by Studio Audio Visual (SAV) Puskat, the Jesuit audio-visual centre in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. SAV Puskat attributes the increase to aggressive promotion of the awards and the relevance of the theme, which is “Environment”. Also known as the Ruedi Hofmann Media Awards, the inaugural Puskat Film Festival in 2015 received 20 entries. The theme was “Faith versus Corruption”.
A special screening of the new film on Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, was held at the Filmoteca Vaticana in Vatican City on June 14. An ambitious project by Jesuit Communications Foundation in the Philippines, Ignacio de Loyola is set to be released in cinemas in the Philippines on July 27. An international release is still being planned.
Pope Francis is at the centre of a new national television series that began airing in Taiwan on April 16. Entitled “Oh My God – Hello Pope!”, it was developed by Jesuit-run Kuangchi Program Service (KPS) which believes this is the first weekly TV series in Asia about the pope.
The National Palace Museum in Taiwan has opened a major exhibition to celebrate its 90th anniversary and the extraordinary work of a Jesuit in China. The exhibition, which opened on October 6 and will last until January next year, is dedicated to Giuseppe Castiglione (郎世寧), a Jesuit brother from Milan who lived for 51 years in the Forbidden City after his arrival in China 300 years ago.
Delegates from across Asia Pacific gathered in Melbourne for a three-day meeting recently, sharing experiences and building bridges between the diverse social communication works in the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific.
The album produced by the Jesuit Music Ministry (JMM) for the Philippine Papal Visit made it to the top 10 of the Original Pinoy Music (OPM) charts in January. This is the first time a JMM album has reached the top 10. “Mercy and Compassion: Songs for Pope Francis” landed in the second spot of the OPM list and in the third spot of the Overall best-selling albums for the fourth week of January.
A copy of the album was presented to Pope Francis when he met with Jesuits in the Philippines on January 16.
A short film produced by Indonesian Jesuit production house SAV Puskat has won first prize in the 5-minute video category of the SIGNIS Asia Media Awards. “Dancing of Life” is about inter-religious dialogue in daily life as lived by the villagers of Demangan, Wedomartani and Sleman in Yogyakarta Province. The film’s central message is “Many faiths, but one mission: love each other”.
The Australian Jesuits’ Eureka Street and eRenlai published by Jesuit-run Taipei-Ricci Institute are part of a major Catholic media initiative launched recently. Their content will be featured, along with that of three other Catholic publications, in Global Pulse, an online paid subscription magazine conceived by UCAN Executive Director Fr Michael Kelly SJ and his team.