9 Religion Themed Films At Sundance Film Festival 2012 (5 Broken Cameras, Corpo Celeste And Others)

The 2012 Sundance Film Festival began Jan. 19 and will continue until Jan. 29 in Park City, Utah. Sundance takes place annually in Utah and is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Religion and spirituality featured prominently at the Sundance Film Festival 2011, with 26 films exploring themes of ultimate meaning, bigger questions of life and the complicated role that religion plays in our world.

This year's festival features at least nine films touching on the topic of religion and spirituality. While most of these films are set against a Christian background, "5 Broken Cameras," directed by a Palestinian and Israeli duo, is a thought-provoking personal documentary on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Additionally, "Bestiaire" uses humans and beasts to explore the Hindu concept of darshan (an act of beholding the Divine).

From exposing the hypocrisy of the church to commenting on the sexual lives of rebellious religious teenagers to chronicling the hopeful story of Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop, these films explore a variety of themes.HuffPost Religion has compiled a list of films highlighted at Sundance Film Festival 2012 that explore the topic of religion and spirituality. Enjoy!

Did we miss a film? Please email us at religion(at)huffingtonpost(dot)com with the name of the film and we'll add it to this list.

Comments

[January]

02:44 AM on 01/30/2012

Religion and art have many things in common, so much so that it is a formal topic for religious studies and at seminaries and theological schools. One major feature is that no one can say what either religion or art is supposed to be, although we attempt to do so regularly. They both simply happen first and explanations come later.

No one can criticize a film for being entertaining, as that is its job. When religion settles for entertainment, however, it fails. If it is just the trappings that are indentified with "themes" of religion, cinema can be satisfied with costuming, display, location, etc. But religion claims its symbolic roots are deeper. If those profound foundations are ignored, it becomes nothing more than what an ancestor called, "pasteboard and persiflage." In which case, we are not served well by such art.

[TheWM]

09:14 AM on 01/29/2012

"each man plays cosmic chess against the devil"

Um... No...

I'm going to go play regular chess against human beings now, and maybe against a computer or two.