'Angels' beautifully told
Produced by: Mark Johnson, Ian Stong, Julie Stong, Brent DeWitt, Shelly DeWitt, Farrell M. Smith
Written by: Heidi Johnson and Christian Vuissa
Starring: Erin Chambers, Rachel Emmers, Bettina Schwarz
OREM — Finished just hours before the producers screened it at the 7th Annual LDS Film Festival at the SCERA Center for the Arts, this endearing film tells the story of Rachel Taylor, played by Erin Chambers, who is called to Austria to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
All the conventions of missionary life are there — the high expectations coupled with low language skills that dovetail into cultural challenges. Beautifully told as she writes of her adventures in her journal, Sister Taylor learns to love the food, the people and even her rough-edged companion, Sister Keller, played by Bettina Schwarz, an Austrian actress.
Taylor learns compassion for Sister Keller through the kindly example of another mission companion, Sister Young, played by Rachel Emmers.
Filmed in postcard picture-perfect Austria in about 16 days, the 10-man crew was so unobtrusive it required only two film permits from the Austrian government — one to shoot scenes in a Jewish cemetery where the missionaries did service projects, and the other in a church, said Austrian-born Vuissa.
Audiences laughed at Sister Taylor's awkwardness and experience with her the moving spiritual journey that includes happiness, sadness, disappointment, frustration and peace as her mission unfolds and defines its real purpose.
A theatrical release for this first-ever LDS sister missionary film is possible this fall, Vuissa said.
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