Faith Under Fire Film - Interview With Executive Producer Melissa Kerley
I had a conversation with Melissa Kerley, the executive producer of a new faith-based film entitled Faith under Fire. The movie is available now on VOD via Netflix, Amazon and other streaming services. You can also purchase it at Walmart and Target. You can view the trailer here.
The following is the interview I did with Melissa, which you can listen to on my podcast here.
Hi Everyone! Today I have with me Melissa Kerley who is the executive producer of a faith-based movie called Faith Under Fire. She’s from Generation Courage.
Could you tell us what is Generation Courage and how did you come up with the name?
Generation Courage is a faith-based film company and we’re located in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan. We are mission based so our films are basically a sermon up on the big screen with the goal of changing the world one movie at a time. Everything that we do also has a second meaning behind it. So, for Faith Under Fire, the movie is about cancer so we are giving some proceeds to the Melanoma Research Foundation to further their research on cancer.
The name actually came from a friend of mine, who when I started the film company in 2009, they told me that’s going to be a challenge. I wanted to be or felt called to the mission’s field and I didn’t really want to go overseas. God kind of planted me in I think the darkest place in the United States, which is Hollywood. That friend was like that takes a lot of courage for somebody in your generation and it’s going to be hard. That’s kind of where the name came from.
What spoke most to you about the Faith Under Fire script?
The script was really good when we read it and when we bought it. We bought the script from Gary Allison. He’s the main writer. It had a lot of like a rollercoaster ride, ups and downs, and twists and turns. It was kind of like a modern-day version of Job from the book of the Bible which I loved. And then it spoke to me because my sister passed away from cancer. I think that every family dynamic is in there for us. That’s why it kind of resonated with me. And why we are donating some of the proceeds to charity. It’s a story that most people have been affected by trials or tribulations in their lives and how do you overcome and why do those things happen and this story shows that through perseverance and endurance you grow closer to God with those trials. As a whole, everybody has been affected by cancer in one way or another. If you haven’t had it personally, you know a family member or a friend who has gone through that type of loss. We felt that it was a film that resonated with a lot of people and because they resonated with it, we would also be able to share a biblical sermon behind it to grow people’s faith.
What was it like working with the actors on set? What was that experience like for you?
The actors were a lot of fun. Dean Cain and Kevin Sorbo were great. Most of the rest of the cast was from the metro Detroit area. A group of film makers here and they are amazing. Everything comes together because God orchestrated it and I couldn’t have asked for a better cast or crew. Everybody played their part and you can tell by the final product that it was divine intervention from God. But Dean and Kevin did an amazing job and they enjoyed doing the script and enjoyed being on set with us. In the end, it was a big blessing to have them on our set. And the same with everyone else that was involved.
Could you give our listeners and readers a summary of Faith Under Fire so they can know what to expect in the movie?
The synopsis is there is a man, who is the main character, his name is Tom Hatcher. He is a firefighter and all in a day’s work is challenging for a firefighter. And he’s going through the loss of his wife. The backstory is that he lost his wife to cancer about two years ago. He’s still going through the grieving process and questioning why did this happen. While he’s still processing that grief and having day to day trials with his job, he is also a widow with a seven-year-old daughter. As the story develops, the daughter also develops cancer. And so now he becomes angry with God because he lost his wife and now is he going to lose his little girl? If he does lose his little girl, what is God’s whole plan for this? It is a tear jerker, but in the end, it does have a happy ending. It grows him closer to God and we watch this whole process through the film. Like I said before, so many people can resonate with that because we’ve all been there. “Why is God doing this? What has He done? What am I waiting for? How come He is doing this? And those are the moments that you grow closer and we don’t understand that “You live life forward but you understand it backwards”. That’s kind of how this film is.
What are the different ways that we can view Faith Under Fire?
We are in theaters right now. We began our theater run on November 27, 2020. But, we just found out we are staying in there another week. We’re excited for that. You can go to faithunderfirefilm.com and it will list the theaters. Unfortunately, in some state’s theaters are closed. Which unfortunately, Michigan is one of the states closed. But we started with about seventeen theaters and we’re going to keep it in nine and December 8, 2020 is when it comes out on streaming. You can find it on Netflix, Amazon, on the Firestick and it will also be in Walmart and Target.
Would you like to tell us about some of the resources on the Faith Under Fire website?
If you are looking to dive deeper into God’s word, we have a small group discussion guide, a church discussion guide and a personal discussion guide that goes along with clips of the movie. So, you can study the story of Job, Ecclesiastes and a few other books of the Bible. It’s combined based around a topic: Faith, worry, etc. Five different clips you can watch that go along with the movie and then some biblical questions for you to answer so you can dive deeper into your faith. You can take that sermon that you watched on the screen and apply it to your life.
I would totally recommend checking out all these resources because as Melissa said they’ve got some great church discussion guides that you can use for your Bible study, your family, your church. It goes clip by clip through the movie so you can dive deeper with scriptures and devotional thoughts and discussion questions so you can really get the most out of your movie experience.
We are starting to work on a second project called “Godspeed”. We would love for you to take a look at what we’re doing next as well as what we’re doing now. We hope you will enjoy the film!
Links:
We’ve had some great reviews come out from MovieGuide and the Dove Foundation.
Cast:
Kevin Sorbo (Doctor Robinson)
Dean Cain (Pastor Dan Underwood)
Nick Vlassopoulos (Tom Hatcher)