Description
Thy Kingdom Come – a collaboration between photographer/filmmaker Eugene Richards and actor/producer Javier Bardem – was conceived of following the filming of Terence Malick’s To the Wonder. As part of that production’s “third unit,” Richards introduced Bardem, who was portraying a parish priest in Malick’s film, to the real life residents of a small Oklahoma town. What had been intended as brief episodes for inclusion in the feature film grew in scope, as the townspeople, wholly aware that the priest was a fictional priest, chose to share personal details of their lives.
About the director: Eugene Richards is a photographer, writer and filmmaker who has authored 17 books. His first publication, Few Comforts or Surprises (1973), which speaks of the lives of sharecroppers in the Arkansas Delta, was followed by Dorchester Days (1978), a portrait of the inner-city neighborhood where he was raised. Subsequent books include Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue (1994), a study of the impact of hardcore drugs on inner city communities; The Blue Room (2008), a study in color of abandoned houses across rural America; and War Is Personal (2010), a documentation of the consequences of the Iraq war. Recent books include Red Ball of a Sun Slipping Down (2014), which contrasts life in the Arkansas Delta decades ago and today; and The Run-On of Time (2017), a retrospective of his photographic work from 1969 to 2014. Richards has filmed and directed a half dozen short films; his recent film, Thy Kingdom Come, premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival in 2018.