Back in the year 2000 the LDS Church released a film that was played in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, called The Testaments.
This film is now available for purchased on DVD through the LDS Church store.
Back in the 1950s and 1960s epic Biblical and Christian films were common place, such as The 10 Commandments, Quo Vadis, Ben Hur, and The Robe, just to name a few.
In modern times these films have nostalgic and religious value to them.
In the last few years very few of these types of films have been made.
These movies had large casts, intricate sets, expensive costumes, big budgets, and filmed on the highest quality film available.
Most of these films were filmed using ultra wide film with an aspect ratio 1.
85:1 or higher, which at the time was not as common as it is today.
In the spirit of these epic Biblical films the film The Testaments was born.
The Testaments was filmed on one of the highest quality cameras available, which was printed on 70mm film as opposed to 35mm film.
The aspect ratio was 2.
20: 1 one of the highest available.
The film uses parallel editing to showing the last 2 years of the Savior's life, weaved in with the life of a family living the Americas at the same time.
The depiction of the Savior's life is based on the stories found in the New Testament, while the story of the family in the Americas is historical fiction based upon The Book of Mormon.
The movie begins with a family of believers in Christ.
The people in America believed that the Savior had come because they had seen the signs of his birth years before.
They also believed that The Savior would visit them after his death.
Their faith stays with many of them however, a boy named Jacob does not want to believe in the signs any longer.
He rejects the believes of the family, and is asked to be an artisan in the courts Kohor.
Kohor is not a believer and in fact is in league with those who want to destroy the believer and take over the government.
When the Savior dies on the Cross there are terrible storms, earthquakes and other natural disasters.
The film ends with the savior visiting and healing the people.
This film has since been replaced by a movie about Joseph Smith called, Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration.
However, this film will go down in LDS Church history as one of the best LDS films and will be loved for generations to come.