168 Film Project Deadline Feb. 1st

Dear 168,

Our annual competition is almost here. The films will all be produced by Feb. 19, the end of the USA Production week (168 Film Festival is March 26-27). Please pray for our filmmakers!

This is our 168 Film Festival Poster Concept (photo by Christina Arena). The Festival is March 26-27, 2010 in Los Angeles.

Saturday's Production Workshop (free and open to all) 1/30/10 at Media City Church 269 E. Providencia Ave. 9:00am-4pm rsvp@168project.com. More info click here:

Internally, we have had the usual financial wrangling and a bit of hand-wringing with the difficult economy, but God is so faithful. He is solving all of our issues even as I write this. We are changing the world through the media! Please pray for us and help support us financially by clicking here.

You filmmakers out there, take note this is your LAST CHANCE TO ENTER A TEAM: Deadline Mon. Feb. 1. We now have 73 teams from 12 states and 9 countries, including Great Britain (2), Kenya, Israel, Italy, Indonesia, Cameroon, Kyrgyzstan, and Mexico. I expect to be very close to our record of 83 teams set in 2009. Register your team here:

I really love our theme this year, "Hearing God." Some of us are on top of the world, while others feel they are barely hanging on. All of us, young and old, meek and bold need to be listening and expecting to hear.

Theme is a big reason why filmmakers jump in. This year they overwhelmingly say they want to do a 168 film because they want to HEAR FROM GOD! We have assured them that they will. God shows up each year on the set, at the awards show and in the verse assignment.

In selecting the verses this year, a funny thing happened. I learned that the well is deep, and I can't understand all of the things the Lord is working through this contest and especially through the theme.

Picking verses for "Hearing God" has been harder than I thought. It did not work to simply search for verse keywords like "listening" or "hearing." This does not allow for full support of the theme. This type of search yielded verses that TALK about hearing, but they are not demonstrative of hearing, making for unsatisfying support of our theme: a bunch of verses about listening/not listening.

So, why is this I wondered? I guess it's a fact that the whole of God's word is what we hear, see and experience when we open the book. I remember that scripture is God-breathed and that we live on every word that comes from God. So the whole of the Bible then becomes fair game, a more complete representation of what we all want, to HEAR GOD.

I hate this expression, because it's usually a lie, but in this case, "IT'S ALL GOOD," meaning all of the Bible is fair game for this exercise of a random verse as the foundation for a film.

As I always tell our filmmakers, the best journey they can take is the one that is completely dictated by the verse, not by preconceived ideas.

NEWSFLASH: 168 FILM PROJECT & NAB SHOW TO PRESENT “FAITH IN FILM” FORUM Wed. April 14, 3:30-5:30 PM at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Click here for more info:

USE our special NAB Show registration by using the code "HF02" - good for free, exhibits-only registration, now until April 1st or $100 off a Conference Flex pass until Feb. 5. Click here to register:

See what it's like producing a 168 Film: