ORLANDO, Fla. — The JESUS film reached a major milestone in July when it debuted in its 1,000th language, Lanka Kol, spoken by more than 1 million people in India. “Now we have the opportunity to begin sharing the gospel story with them in their own language,” Jim Green, executive director of The JESUS Film Project, said in a statement.
As the most translated film in movie history, the JESUS film outpaces translations of blockbusters like “Gone with the Wind,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Star Wars,” “Titanic” and “The Lion King” combined, according to a news release. The JESUS film, produced by Campus Crusade for Christ, opened in theaters in the United States in 1979 and has achieved more than 6 billion viewings worldwide.
More than 200 million decisions for Christ have been made as a result of the film, including about 14,000 people who made public decisions for Christ when a missionary team showed the JESUS film to Nigeria’s Idoma people group this summer, according to the film project. The two-hour docudrama about the life of Christ based on the Gospel of Luke often is shown in remote, Third World countries using a makeshift screen and portable projector, producers noted, and sometimes it’s the first look people in those countries have at a movie image. “Through the JESUS film, we can tell the incredible story of God’s love in a way that people can relate to — and we can do it in their heart language,” Green said.
Project coordinators have plans to continue translating the JESUS film into 500 new languages. That includes every language with more than 100,000 speakers.
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