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News Helping to Save the MTV Generation The producer of the vocations video �Fishers of Men� wants his Grassroots Films production company to touch the hearts of young men and women with the beauty of Christian truth. By Barb Ernster
National Catholic Register Joseph Campo is producer for Grassroots Films, the company that brought you �Fishers of Men.� The Brooklyn, N.Y.-based production company produced the fast-paced, contemporary inspirational DVD for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops� vocation program. Campo is also the director of St. Francis House, an apostolate of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, and is director of Youth 2000 New York. He spoke to Register correspondent Barb Ernster about �Fishers of Men� and the mission behind Grassroots Films. Tell me about your background and how you came to be director of St. Francis House? I grew up a Catholic in Long Island, N.Y., and went to Mass with my dad on Sundays. When I got older I became a photographer, and I was sort of an entrepreneurial character. I wasn�t always going to Mass every Sunday in those days, but I had a strong belief in God that has been with me my entire life. In 1988, I had a conversion experience in Medjugorje, which turned my whole life upside down. I knew that everything I learned about my Catholic faith was true, and it changed my view of the world. Before my conversion, I had seen Father Benedict Groeschel and Father Glenn Sudano of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal preach at my local parish, and I thought, �Boy, if I ever hooked up with a group of guys, it would be this group.� Six months later, after my conversion, I wanted to give my whole life for God, and someone told me to contact the Friars. I wasn�t working at the time, and so I spent some time with them and got acquainted with Father Groeschel. He had opened the St. Francis House for young men in 1967 in Brooklyn. The friars had reached a point where they couldn�t staff it full time and were going to close the house, but they asked me to look at it first. It was a natural fit for me, so I became director. That was 17 years ago. Grassroots Films got started in an unusual way. A young man who is now our director, Chuck Kinanne, came to New York as an intern in a film company and was staying at the house. Chuck�s first day of work in New York City was Sept. 11, 2001. He was there when the World Trade Center came down. He was only 18, from Rhode Island, and had lived on a farm all his life. Welcome to New York, right? I thought this young man came here to die. He made it, of course, and he went back to his family to grieve. After a while, I encouraged him to come back to New York. While he was here I looked at some of his work and saw how talented he was. I told him we would make films together. A good friend of ours, Father David Engo, who is featured in the �Fishers of Men� film, suggested we make films for God. That was five years ago. Now we have 10 to 15 people working on our films. Your company is certainly very different from others of its kind. Our goal is to captivate and change the way people feel about certain subjects. We want to give the audience what it is starving for: the Truth. For example, we�re doing a film called The Human Experience. Although this is a pro-life film, I can promise you it will never mention abortion. We�re taking the positive approach about the beauty of life in order to change the way people feel and think about life, about babies, about each other. We�re all children of God. Basically that is the mission of Grassroots Films. MTV never says, �Brought to you by Satan and all of his cohorts.� And our films will never say, �Brought to you by Jesus Christ and all the angels and saints in heaven,� but they are. Not every film we do is necessarily a Catholic film, but everything we do will have morals and courageous people in it. The priesthood was a pretty good place to start. The point is to preach to the unchurched, and to get our message out to the world. That�s what we did with �Fishers of Men.� We made it for the people who are not priests and not in seminary, to show that the priesthood is a challenge. This is for real men. Catholics, of course, are going to watch our films, and they should. But the messages in our films are for everyone, to make them see and think. The way we use music in the films also helps you have a spiritual experience. Music does something that no other sound does. It bypasses reason and logic and goes directly to the soul. It�s perfectly natural for a human being�s soul to reach for their Creator, and music is a vehicle to do that. Many people are familiar with your vocational film, �Fishers of Men.� How did that start? We were filming �God on the Streets of New York,� a Eucharistic procession with the monstrance blessed by John Paul II for vocations, for the vocation director in the Archdiocese of New York. Father Ed Burns [Executive Director of the U.S. bishops� Committee on Vocations] was there. I spoke to him while we were filming and I sent him a copy of the film along with several other films, including the World Youth Day in Cologne. He called me and contracted for us to do a DVD to go along with the Fishers of Men vocation program that was already in place. Now the DVD has become the program. When we showed �Fishers of Men� to about 600 people in Yonkers, N.Y., at the Catholic Underground, a young lady told us, �I know I can�t be a priest, but this film strengthens me for whatever I do in life. It will help me follow my vocation.� They�re showing this in seminaries, high schools and churches. My suggestion is that they show it to second graders. Where I come from, little boys want to save the world. They want to be police officers and firemen. Why not give them the option of saving souls? That�s the priesthood. And you have to give it to them before adolescence. If you do, then adolescence will be formed with this in the heart. You have completed at least eight films with several more in production. How are they being used and how are they distributed? Most of our films are being distributed by our website (grassrootsfilms.com) and through several distributors. Our largest distributor is for �Fishers of Men,� through the USCCB�s office, which has done a tremendous job promoting it. They have received requests for the film from 17 other countries, and it�s now available in Spanish. We have some people working on getting our films into the educational system. Most people will say our films are fast paced and modern. The language today is in the media, in television and movies. The young men at the house here understand the language because they�re part of the MTV generation and they will save the John Paul II generation. There are many times I step back and let them make certain decisions on things because they�re able to see both sides of it. What other upcoming projects are you anticipating? Besides [making] The Human Experience, I was recently in Minneapolis to meet with Connie Schneider, who is in charge of the Children�s Program for the World Apostolate of Fatima. We may do a DVD about the children�s prayer day at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C., and it may also involve a film about Our Lady of Fatima.
Barb
Ernster writes from |