Student's film speaks to three walks of faith

Ruslan Zavricico's senior film project The Son of Abraham has won two awards at the International Christian Film and Music Festival. Zavricico was awarded Best Director, and the film won Audience Choice. Eric Robert, an Academy Award nominated actor, stars in the film.

The Son of Abraham started as a senior film project at Southern Adventist University. Zavricico wanted his film to reach the Muslim community.

To accomplish his goal, Zavricico focused his film on the biblical story of Abraham taking his son up a mountain as a sacrifice at God's command. The story holds significance to the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths, making it a cross-religious film.

Hope Studios, the film and storytelling arm of Hope Channel International, partnered with Zavricico and Adventist Muslim Relations to produce and distribute it. The film is now being translated into Arabic, Persian, and Turkish.

One shared story

Each year, Muslims around the world observe Eid al-Adha, which honors Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son. In the Quran's account, the father tells the son what he has been asked to do, and the son answers, "O my father, do as you are commanded." God stops the killing and, in the words of the text, ransoms the son "with a great sacrifice." In that whole passage, Surah as-Saffat 37:99 to 113, the son is never named.

Jewish and Christian faith practices find the same story in Genesis 22. In this version, God tells Abraham to "Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you." (Genesis 22:2). The boy carries the wood up the mountain on his own back and asks his father, "Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" (v. 7). God stops Abraham from sacrificing Isaac and instead produces a ram as an offering.

Christian faiths have long read this chapter as pointing toward something still to come. The New Testament returns to the story in Hebrews 11, saying that Abraham, when he was tested, "offered up his only begotten son," and that he did it "concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead" (v. 17-18).

The crucial difference between the stories is the name of the son. The Quran never names Isaac. To reflect this difference in the story, Zavricico omitted the son's name from the script, despite his appearing in nearly every scene.

"I want the audience to notice right away that we're focusing on the son," he said.

Connecting Abraham to Jesus' experience

Zavricico grew up hearing the story and realized the connection between Abraham and Isaac's story and that of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection.

"I realized how close Jesus must have been to Abraham and especially his son, knowing that He would walk the same journey with His own Father," he recalled.

In The Son of Abraham, the camera follows the son and stays with him. The connection to Jesus is left to the viewer's discretion. No character explains it, an approach Hope Studios said was designed to open conversation with Muslim, Jewish, and Christian viewers.

"Unlike Abraham's son, Jesus went all the way," Zavricico said. "He has done it for us, out of love. Nobody took His life, but He laid it down voluntarily. And yet somehow, He had peace and trust in His Father's love."

A connection to professional film crews

A year before directing his first film, Zavricico spent three weeks on the crew of Slick, a short film produced by Southern Adventist University and filmed in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Nick Livanos, associate professor in Southern Adventist University's School of Visual Art and Design, was an executive producer on the film. He said the project, written and directed by Southern Adventist University and crewed by Southern Adventist University students, provided real-world experience alongside professional mentorship. The university partnered with Hope Studios, which financed the project's casting and is now the sales agent and distributor, thereby increasing the project's reach.

Students carry the altar wall on their shoulders across the hilltop where the film was shot. Credit: Ruslan Zavricico's personal archive

Zavricico served as script supervisor on the Slick shoot. The script supervisor keeps the film consistent, staying beside the director and recording dialogue, costume, behavior, and actions in every take.

Zavricico has since graduated from Southern Adventist University.

The original article was published on the Hope Channel International news site.