T.C. Christensen

T.C. Christensen has written and directed a number of critically acclaimed faith-based films. He talks with Jay Hildebrandt about his most recent film, "Escape From Germany," which depicts the miraculous events surrounding the escape of American missionaries from Germany in the chaotic time just days before World War II broke out. He also talks  about the important role of wholesome movies in today's world.

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The Sunday Blessings Podcast is hosted by Jay Hildebrandt and features stories of faith, hope, and inspiration. You'll hear extended interviews, musician & artist spotlights, and more. Sunday Blessings can be heard weekly on Sundays from 5am-5pm mountain standard time on Classy 97, Sunny 97, and Classy 97 Lite.

Sharing stories of faith, hope, and inspiration. This is the Sunday Blessings podcast. Welcome to our Sunday Blessings podcast. I'm Jay Hildebrandt, and I'm here today with filmmaker TC Christiansen. And thank you so much, TC, for being with us today.

I like to be here. I like to talk to you, Jay. You're nice. Well, thank you. So for our audience who may not be familiar with what you've done, tell us a little bit about, your career so far.

Well, I've I started in the 8th grade making films, stick stealing my dad's camera and making problems for him. And now here I am 60 years later, and I've never done anything else. I've never had any job, really. I've always been a freelance filmmaker. Alright.

And, some of the films that you've made people may be familiar with include Kochville Miracles, 17 Miracles, Ephraim's Rescue, Fighting Preacher, and the latest one, Escape from Germany. And, this holds a special place in my heart because with some of your films, you asked the descendants of the people in that film to be the extras, and, I had a chance to do that. But first, tell us a little bit about what this this film is all about. Well, it's 1939, Germany, and the president of the, LDS Church is Heber j Grant. And he sends a message over to the mission presidents and says, the war is going to start in 3 days.

Get those missionaries out. And that's basically the story is what it took to get them out in a country under chaos with no communications. It was, it took miracles to make it happen. Yeah. And, I know you that it's this, issue of inviting the descendants.

Tell me how you decided to do that. We've done that on a few other films, but never to the degree that we did on this one. There were 79 missionaries that escaped under this idea of this film that we made, And that's those 79 have a lot of descendants. And so we've kind of set it up with some crew people, and our author of the book, Terry Montague, helped us in locating many of them, and they came. They were terrific.

They would come almost every day we had descendants on the set. And every day, I would introduce them to the cast and crew, and every day, I would cry because, it was just so great to have proof right there in front of us and for the crew and cast to see. These are real stories we're telling. Now, Sinan, for the descendants, it was really special too. I know my sister and I, you tracked us down.

We were invited to come up to the, Hebrew train station in Utah Mhmm. For some of the scenes there. And just seeing all the people there that had similar relatives, you know, who had gone through this as a father or grandfather, great grandfather in some cases, was really special for us to sort of honor them in that way by being a part of this. One of the things that also touched me along with that is that I'd be sitting there ready to film and look over and see our actor who's portraying a certain missionary, and then we would place that actor's actual son or daughter or granddaughter next to them in the scene, and they're sitting there talking to each other about this person we're portraying. That always touched me.

Really unique situation there, isn't it? So you mentioned that there were several miracles, Cece, in this, movie and getting the missionaries out of Germany in a very rough time, just days before the war started. Can you share one of those with us? 1 I just find astounding, every time I'd be reminded of it is that this elder who is off searching for missionaries is going through train stations. And in those train stations, that's where the elders are because that's where how they get out.

And at one point, he feels pulled to leave the train station, go up into the village, and walks around, and he comes to a pub. Well, he knows they're not in there because they're not supposed to go in there because there's booze that served in there. And he just can't get away from it. He keeps being pulled, and he walks in, and there's 2 stranded elders with no money, don't know what to do. For him to be so in tune to find them is just is the chances of that are astronomical.

Yeah. And then in making the movie also and you've made other movies that that deal with miracles, but the miracles happen also not only in the the, subject of the movie, but in making the movie. Some things that are more than coincidence. Can you share 1 or 2 of those with us? We did a scene with Irma Rosenhan.

She was the last living survivor. A 103 when I met her and died before we could film her at a 105. I wanted Irma's character to be in the film, but I had a problem with her character, which was I had a great beginning, a first act, and I had a great ending, but I didn't have a second act. And it that's not enough to make you feel like you've gotten to know know a character. And I couldn't find anything for the second act, so I made one up.

And I kinda felt bad about it, but I wanted something with some peril and her on a train and maybe a Nazi, a flirty Nazi kind of coming toward her in an aggressive way. Well, I filmed that, and then as we talked about we had these descendants that were there, I apologized to one of her descendants. And I told him, I I know that that didn't really happen. I hope you'll forgive me. I just had to have this scene to fill out the film.

And that was Dan Rosenhan. And Dan said to me, I don't know if that happened or not to her, but Irma's mother had to escape World War 1. And that incident did happen to Irma's mother. And he said, I we just thought that you were using Irma's mother's story to tell Irma's story. We have no problem with it at all.

That's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. That's something. So what would you say the message of the movie is that you you want viewers to take away?

Really, one of the main things I hope they take away, they come out of the theater and they think, that's a good film. That fat bald guy finally made a good film. I wanna see it again. Because after all, it is entertainment. It's in a movie theater.

And they have to pay to go to it. I hope that that fits the bill and that they like it in that way. But beyond that, I think there are many messages and lessons that come out of it. There are lessons for missionaries now that I think they can look at it and see things that these missionaries did and think, hey, maybe I can be more that way. I think there's also life lessons kinds of things and looking at the way some people in society are treated and shouldn't be.

You know, we deal with the way that the Jewish people were being treated. And in our society, there's some incidences of that. I I think there's all kinds of things that people can come away with. You mentioned missionaries learning lessons from this. What what kind of lessons do you think that it would, would speak to modern day missionaries?

Well, our hero, Norm Seibold, who is an Idaho boy Yes. Born right here in Idaho Falls. I'd love to tell that. And elder Seibold had 2 great qualities that I think any missionary could do well to know and learn. The first one is he was kind of a a well read personality.

He was able to decide he was gonna do something and he was gonna get it done. He didn't just let it pass by and say, oh, we'll do it next time. And the second thing, he was just amazingly spiritual. He had so many incidences like the one we previously were talking about where he just seems to be guided on what he should do and who needs that more than a missionary. And he was an Idaho boy.

He was born here, but I think he he lived much of his life in Rupert, Idaho. That's right. Mhmm. You know, TC, one of the things that impressed me as I watched Escape from Germany is is the music. Talk a little bit about that music and music in general, how that really adds to a film.

Boy, I'm a big believer in music. And if anything, I get criticized because maybe use too much music in a film, but I don't care. I love it. And I it sets a mood and a tone that you just can't get in any other way. And and for this film, I was listening to an album that a local composer had sent me several years ago, way before we were in the middle of this film.

But I was thinking about this film, and I as I listened to it, the first cue on the album, I just thought, this sounds like train music. It sounds like traveling music. It has this kind of a kind of sound to it. And that was Marshall McDonald's piece, the the master's touch. That was Marshall McDonald's, the master's hand, also supported with Steven Sharp.

Nelson is one of the piano guys. And I contacted him, and he was so gracious and a let us use that piece. We also, hired Christian Davis to do a variation on do what is right. Do what is right, if you've seen the film, has a very important place throughout the film, but we also support it with a variation that I think most people don't even pick up on that that's what it is, but I think it gets into their psyche. And that's what I want is the music to just add a little bit more to their experience.

So I wanna switch the the topic from Escape from Germany to just these faith based films in general, then you have made many of them. And we're seeing, it seems that we're seeing a lot of these nowadays. Why do you think there's this public appetite for faith based films like that? Oh, I I don't. You know, I can kept telling you my opinion.

I haven't studied. Didn't really know. But I do think that there's some Hollywood backlash that we've had. Much of our society is kind of not happy with what's available in the theaters, and for the most part. And, also, there have been 6 some successful Christian and spiritual type films, and I think that that spurs on more.

If the filmmaker, most people want to make something that gets seen. And you don't just show it in your basement to your mom, and that's the end of it. And so it's brought more people to the field. And, going along with that, you personally doing faith based films. Why did you choose that?

Well, my career really was not. I mean, I've made quite a few religious films and so forth. But, I really my career was I did IMAX films and commercials and everything that goes with it. It was really as I got a little older and I started thinking, I need to start making some of my own films. And I had decided early on in my life that, you know, film is a powerful medium, and it touches people or it can and can affect their life.

And I thought, well, you know what? I'm gonna come down on the side of being positive and trying to make people feel better when they come out of the theater and not feel all troubled and like they need to take a shower. And so that just kinda carried on. I started doing some of those type of films and they were successful. Our first one in this way was 17 Miracles and it was successful.

And so I start looking for something else that I feel strongly about. And that's these stories that I found are just the ones that come up. They're the best stories I can find. And that must be rewarding to know that the films you're making from the feedback we get touch people and inspire them, and and so it must be rewarding for you to feel like you have a hand in that at least. Yeah.

I hope it I hope all that happens. You know, my hero in filmmaking is Frank Capra. And for those of you who are film students, you may not know who Frank Capra is. But you would know his film, It's a Wonderful Life, which I hope you're all watching every Christmas like my family does. And one of the reasons that he's my film hero, Frank Capra, this kinda typifies him.

This is a thing that Frank Capra said in his book that I read many years ago. And I'm just paraphrasing this, you know, Jay. I I don't know that exactly. He said something like, I will in my films I will deal with the little man's doubts and fears. And in the end, I will let them know that god loves them and that I love them.

And I think that's just, for a filmmaker, how can you get a better kind of a credo than that? That you want people to come out? No. You know, I think movies matter, and the movies that matter the most are the movies that make you realize you matter. I want people to come out of the theater and feel like they have something divine in them, then that they can conquer the problems in their life and that they're not alone.

How are these experiences going at to a personal level here as you research all of these films that or you see miracles and then and, then you see miracles on the set as as you're as you're shooting these films. How does that strengthen your personal faith? For me, it's a it's a lifetime of little drops in the bucket or drops of oil in the lamp where I've never had one one thing that happened and I go, oh, I wasn't a believer and now I'm a believer. I'm not I'm not criticizing or, minimizing anybody that has had experiences like that. But for me, it's just a lifetime of seeing all of these evidences and feeling, the spirit as we do good things and other people are touched.

And at the end, you know, hopefully, my bucket's full. Alright. Well, what a great way to end our conversation here, TC. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm Jhildebrandt, and this is a Sunday Blessings podcast.

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