Amazing Grace Update

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I just got off the telephone from Galleria Cinemas.

Several inquiries were received by the Cinemas about the movie Amazing Grace.  Accordingly, I was told the following:

  • Although the film is showing in the USA at the moment, and will open in the UK and Ireland tomorrow (March 23, 2007), it is in limited release. Galleria's distributors will let the cinemas know when it is available to be shown in The Bahamas.
  • I expressed the concern -- shared, clearly, by the National Cultural Commission -- that the anniversary of the signing of the Act is on Sunday, and that the only film currently available about the event is not showing in The Bahamas, a country fundamentally affected by the Act.

If the film is not intended to be released in the Caribbean at the time of the Bicentenary of the Abolition, then that is a significant lapse of judgement of the filmmakers and the studio. There is really very little to be gained, either for history or for Christianity itself, to show the film in the homes of the people who perpetrated the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, and not to do so in the homes of the societies that were created by that very trade.

Something is askew.

edit: It seems as though the film was indeed initially in limited release. Since then, however, the distributors have increased its availability. Whether that availability extends beyond the USA or the North American continent remains to be seen; I am emailing the distributors to find out for myself.