Production Underway on Documentary Film

Film to air next year on EWTN and will be available to the public on DVD

From the weathered rowhouses of Staten Island, N.Y., to the Vietnamese hillside where he gave his life our documentary film is well underway and will take viewers on the incredible life journey of Father Capodanno. This hour-long film is jointly underwritten by the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) and our Guild – we couldn’t do it without your generous support – THANK YOU.

Our documentary is being produced by award-winning filmmaker James C. Kelty and is set to air on EWTN sometime next year. DVD’s will be available to donors who support the Guild with a gift of $20 or more.  These donations will help pay for Guild expenses associated both with the Cause for canonization, and to further spread the news about our priest hero.

Mr. Kelty is no novice to Catholic filmmaking. His 2015 documentary Kateri, about the life of St. Kateri Takakwitha, the 17th Century Algonquin “Lily of the Mohawks,” has just been named winner of the Capax Dei Foundation Award. Mr. Kelty accepted the award on June 23rd in Rome at the Mirabile Dictu International Catholic film festival, promoted by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture. Mr. Kelty’s other film credits include the 2013 television mini-series Serra: Ever Forward Never Back, about the life of 18th Century Franciscan missionary Junípero Serra y Ferrer, who was canonized by Pope Francis during his October 2015 visit to Washington, D.C.

In the ongoing production Kelty is tracing the Servant of God’s story through his boyhood on Staten Island, his years at the Maryknoll Seminary in upstate New York, his time as a missionary in Taiwan, and his ultimate service and sacrifice as a Navy chaplain. Mr. Kelty is in the process of interviewing family members and many of those with whom Father Capodanno served during his remarkable ministry. “I want to capture through the memories of those who knew him the essence of Father Capodanno’s humanity, how he seemed to inhabit the world of the sacred and the world of the profane with equal poise, dignity and courage.” The production schedule includes a visit to Vietnam on the Sept. 4th anniversary of Father Capodanno’s death. There, Mr. Kelty will accompany Capodanno’s biographer Father Daniel L. Mode, author of The Grunt Padre (CMJ Marian), and some who served with Father Capodanno to the Que Son Valley hillside where the “grunt padre” gave his all for God, Country, and fellow defenders of liberty. “The Vietnam trip is a chance to get location visuals,” Mr. Kelty said, “to walk alongside the pilgrims as they think, remember, and rekindle their memories in the place where it happened 49 years ago to the day.”
Date: 7/1/2016