In the new movie, “Me & You, Us, Forever” director Dave Christiano shows that the reality and painful experience of divorce can happen anywhere, including within churches. Christiano, who is based in North Carolina wrote, produced and directed the film.

His distribution company, called Five and Two Pictures, which he co-runs with his twin brother, produces a variety of Christian-based films and television shows for religious networks. Their message, though atypical from Hollywood standards, is simple “the goal is to produce these projects and continue to present messages for Jesus Christ.”

As a result, “Me & You…” is rated PG only because of the spiritual elements and has no sex or bad language whatsoever. In the film, Dave, (played by Michael Blain-Rozgay) is a 47-year-old Christian man in an unwanted divorce. Through his difficulty, he begins thinking about the first girl he ever fell in love with when he was 17.

To make the story more believable, Dave found his own first love 21 and a half years later and got her permission to use her in his screenplay.  She eventually was the inspiration for his female protagonist Mary (played by young actress Kathryn Worsham.) “This is a real love story,” he said. “It’s meant, to help the hurting, not to make them feel ashamed or alienated, but rather know there’s hope,” Christiano said.

In a Gallup poll taken in 2002, only 41percent of those who attended church on a weekly basis said divorce was acceptable. The results of the study, however, found that conservative Christian faiths (specifically those that define as “born again”) have the highest divorce rate at 27 percent, yet are still the most likely to say divorce is morally wrong.
 
In a later Gallup poll taken by CNN and USA Today in 2006, 30 percent of adult Americans say they have been divorced at some point in their lifetimes. Still many churches view the issue as taboo and often ignore the reality of the situation. In his own research, Christiano took a poll of church leaders in the cities where his film is débuting to find out how many people in their congregation have been affected by it at some point in their lives.

According to the director, it’s at least 90 percent. Richard Kip, 65 a divorce care group leader at First Baptist Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida believes this statistic traverses moral lines. “I think divorce is affecting churchgoers to the same extent it’s affecting the general population,” he said. “It’s an epidemic in America, particularly if churches do not deal with it effectively.”

As a facilitator, Kip uses DVDs through Divorcecare.com, a site run by Churchinitiative.org that helps these ministries start up in congregations. “We find in our group half the population are members, the other half aren’t and some don’t have a church,” he said.

In some cases people may feel ashamed or embarrassed to go and seek help within their church, according to Kip while some churches don’t even support a ministry because they feel like it somehow supports having a divorce. For director Christiano, he wants his film to help people be honest about their emotions and honest with them selves, especially when struggling through life’s trials. “You don’t hear many sermons on divorce trying to reach out to people. And they are hurting,” Christiano said.

The film “Me & You, Us, Forever” will be out in theatres on Feb. 15th, Valentine’s Day weekend in 83 cities and 34 states.  For more information, visit http://www.meyouusforever.com/    

 
Cristela Guerra is a freelance journalist and independent radio producer who has written for various newspapers in newspapers in Florida. She can be reached at cguerra@smallponds.com.