Q&A David Wall

Father Keene and Father Simeon are two priests, both struggling with their own faults and doubts, whose friendship risks being torn apart when Father Keene is sent to shut Father Simeon’s parish down just before Christmas. As Father Keene’s visit begins to affect the lives of the parishioners he encounters, it also turns his own life inside out, urging him to face choices he’s made in the past and make a new choice about his future. Noëlle, rated PG, releases in select theatres nationwide on December 7. Catholic Digest recently spoke with David Wall — the film’s director, writer, producer, and leading actor — about the project.

CD: What urged you to write this story?

WALL: There were probably three elements. One, my wife and our four children — three children at the time — lived on Cape Cod at the time, and there was a yearly Christmas party on our street in this old whaling captain’s house. People from every age, every ethnicity, every religion, every social status, were represented there, and it was just such a magical gathering. In spite of all these people’s diversity, for that evening, at least, they were all there celebrating one thing — Christmas.

Secondly, as I thought about that party, about what was represented there, I started playing with the idea of the Church being that community — actually being a group of people who loved and cared for one another outside of the confines of an official church.

The third thing would be the Christmas story itself.

CD: Your film production company is Volo Films. What is the company’s mission, and how does Noëlle fit into that mission?

WALL: Volo is Latin for "I fly," and about a year before we began shooting, I had this amazing dream — and I don’t mean to sound nutty, but this is literally how it happened! It was so vivid. I was flying at this incredible speed in the dark, and I was in this huge palace, and I kept zipping by these enormous columns, and I was terrified that I was going to hit them. And all of a sudden it occurred to me that I couldn’t actually fly, so someone or something must be flying me. Once I realized that, the terror just drained out of the dream and it suddenly became exhilarating. I think life is a lot like that. We’ve got to have faith, we’ve got to have courage. And I’ve often likened the making of Noëlle to flying in the dark, so that’s where the name and that whole vision came from.

CD: How did faith play a role for you and the cast in this project?

WALL: Well, faith literally got this movie made. My wife and I sold our home on Cape Cod. We put up the bulk of the money from that sale into the movie. That basically gave all these other investors faith. Another thing that stood out to me, this local priest gave us their church and rectory (for the filming), just trusted it to us. I’ve never forgotten that. And another thing that comes to mind is, this movie’s set at Christmas. So we needed a lot of snow, we needed it to look wintry and beautiful. The Cape, as you may know, doesn’t often get tons of snow. So we just called everyone we knew who prayed and said, "Pray for snow." Well, we set a 50-year record that year for snow. I could go on and on, but story after story, it just came down to, "OK, I believe we’re supposed to do this, so I believe it’s going to work out."