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Eric Groth, president of ODB Films and executive producer of \u201cWildcat\u201d stops by the show to talk about the film about the late Catholic author Flannery O\u2019Connor. ODB Films is an award-winning not-for-profit Catholic film company whose mission is to foster an encounter with Christ through artfully made, spiritually rich films.\xa0 Their newest movie, \u201cWildcat\u201d was written and directed by Academy Award nominee Ethan Hawke and details O\u2019Connor\u2019s struggle to publish her first novel.\xa0

Flannery O\u2019Connor was a devout Catholic living in the Jim Crow Era south in the 50s and 60s.\xa0 When she was 23 years old, she began writing, hoping to leave her home in Georgia and see the world. At age 25, she was diagnosed with Lupus. Over the next 14 years O\u2019Connor wrote \u201cA Prayer Journal,\u201d more than 30 short stories and two novels.\xa0

Eric explains why he believes her writing was so important.\xa0 \u201cShe was addressing a very contentious, racist south.\xa0 As a Catholic, she was really calling out a lot of Protestant brothers and sisters -- she was calling out the church that would be worshiping Jesus on Sunday and wearing the Ku Klux Klan hoods on Monday, and the culture of white supremacy that was masked as Christian ethics.\u201d\xa0\xa0

\u201cShe wrote a lot about grace and her stories were tough, because we want heroes in stories and in her stories, [we wonder] \u2018Who's the protagonist? Who's the antagonist?\u2019\u201d Eric continues. \u201cBut she showed how God delivers grace, however God wants to deliver grace, and we as humans often resist grace because it can be painful.\u201d

Father Dave and Eric discuss the origins of this movie and how it began 10 years ago with Ethan\u2019s daughter, Maya Hawke.\xa0 \u201cThis really started with her,\u201d Eric says. \u201cShe was 15 and going to Catholic school in New York and she read Flannery\u2019s \u201cA Prayer Journal\u201d and fell in love with this woman.\u201d Maya would later go on to ask her dad to write and direct a movie about O\u2019Connor that she could star in.\xa0 Eric and ODB films were eventually approached for financing and a producing partnership.\xa0 Eric tells Father Dave what attracted him to the film: \u201cI love my Catholic Faith. I Love our stories and telling great stories and she [O\u2019Connor] was a bit of a mystery.\u201d

\u201cThis film was super special for a lot of reasons,\u201d Eric says. \u201cFlannery was a devout Catholic, so we could bring the beauty of the Catholic faith naturally and organically in telling the story without ever having to force it in any way.\u201d