Christians and Jews in Oberammergau
An Everyman film for Easter-
Oberammergau - a tiny village in the Bavarian Alps, but a world-famous one. For one summer season every decade the villagers perform the Passion of Christ, and hundreds of thousands of spectators come to see it. The play is a spectacular act of faith: it goes back nearly 350 years, involves virtually every member of the village, lasts five hours in performance and is, in scale and longevity, unique.
But for more than a decade, the play has also been the source of great controversy. Is it anti-Semitic? Does it project the right image of Christianity? Should it be replaced, or changed, or even stopped? The controversy has been considered at the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church, and has also divided the village into warring camps, as first one faction, then another, has gained control. Oberammergau performed the play last summer for the 34th time. In this special Easter film Everyman presents excerpts from it, and reports on a controversy whose implications go to the very roots of Christianity.
Narrator PETER FRANCE
Film cameraman KEITH HOPPER Film editor JOHN LYTE Producer DANIEL WOLF
Everyman editor ANDREW BARR