Private Project

The Passion of Joan

In a solitary field with the sounds of battle nearby, Joan of
Stockton, a young mystic and warrior is shot in the leg with an arrow and captured.

In a medieval type landscape sometime in the near future, she is held outside in a bamboo cell. The Vicar and Joshua, warriors themselves and representatives of the Church, interrogate her, attempting to have her sign a confession denying her visions and her healing abilities. Comforted and advised by the female spirit of God, Joan wages an emotional and intellectual battle with the Vicar who holds her fate in his hands.

Joan is forced to not only battle the Vicar and Joshua, but also her own inner demons, doubts, fears and haunted past. Her ultimate battle is the one being waged for her soul. As Joan confronts her dark night of the soul, a small group of her followers have camped nearby to give her emotional and spiritual support during her passion and possible death at the stake.

  • Salvatore Lumetta
    Director
  • Salvatore Lumetta
    Writer
  • Steve Groff
    Producer
  • Christine Hauer
    Key Cast
    "Joan"
  • Bruno Iannone
    Key Cast
    "Vicar"
  • Steve Groff
    Key Cast
    "Joshua"
  • Jessica Park
    Key Cast
    "Spirit"
  • Julian De La Chica
    Music Composed by
  • Project Type:
    Feature
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 46 minutes 28 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    November 22, 2021
  • Production Budget:
    50,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Black & White and Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Salvatore Lumetta

Salvatore Lumetta is a graduate of New York University’s Film School and a recipient of The Paulette Goddard Scholarship for excellence in filmmaking for directing and screenwriting. Mr. Lumetta has written over ten feature length screenplays and has directed and acted in the short films The Bird Tribes, A Conscience Will Kill You, Natalia Dance, Carnival Dreams, Black Moonlight and Sacred Beauty. He has directed and acted in numerous Off Off Broadway productions throughout his career as well as appearing in several indie based features. He was a Producer of the feature motion picture I Was A Teenage Zombie, a recent addition to the Hulu Criterion Collection of films. He has recently completed his first feature film The Passion of Joan which he wrote and directed. Together with his partner Steve Groff and their company Brilliant Earth Pictures, he is working on putting the final touches on the scripts for their next two feature films the drama “American Country” and the international horror film “All Souls Day”

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Director Statement

This movie was inspired by Carl Theodor Dreyer's silent masterpiece "The Passion of Joan of Arc", the historical look at Joan of Arc's passion, interrogation and execution by ministers of the church. The transcendental style and atmosphere of that work informs the themes and look of this film.

The spiritual and physical struggle between an individual's personal relationship with the Divine and the authoritarian constricts of a religious hierarchy is an ongoing battle which humanity consistently plays out, often on a grand scale leaving a trail of suffering and carnage.

Using this age old struggle, I've created a modern day tale using the Joan of Arc story, which is also the Christ story, to put the feminine into the foreground, challenging the patriarchy which has kept us in chains for centuries. It is my intent to challenge the audience to a dialogue with the ideas presented by a strong feminine heroine fighting embedded theological thought forms and those women, men and female spirits who walk with her in an attempt to change the patriarchal paradigm which has led us to the point of ecological, spiritual and moral destruction.

I've also created this piece as a transcendental work, once again challenging the audience to engage not only from their minds, but from their hearts and spirits. The merging between meditative, transcendent and intellectual curiosity should mirror in the audience, the state of mind and being in which Joan experiences life and her impending death. The veil between physical reality and spiritual reality merges, dissolves, to present the audience with a more complex vision of the true nature of reality and existence.