Australia is part of a Seventh-day Adventist international film project that puts a spotlight on the role of fathers.

Adventist businessman and father-of-two Justin Stafford is one of six dads featured in Fathers, an intercultural documentary initiated by Adventist media entities in Europe.

The film’s director Adrian Dure said the project is all about creating content that can inspire, motivate and orient families, and show the importance of fathers in today’s society.

“The role of fathers for the family is very important and there is not too much material about fathers or for fathers,” he said.

“The movie shows the lives and types of relationships of six fathers, from six different countries, with their children.

“The idea of the movie is to show the value of being a father for our families around the world. The cultural aspect is also important, to see the difference and similarities between families.”

Dads from Cuba, Spain, Lebanon, South Africa and South Korea also feature in the documentary.

Mr Dure, coordinator for network projects for Stimme der Hoffnung (the Adventist Church’s European Media Centre), said the project came out of discussions between European members of the Global Adventist Internet Network (GAiN).

“Even though this is originally a European project, we decided to produce the documentary including many countries and cultures from other parts of the world, because we considered that the cultural aspect is very important,” he said.

Adventist Media in Sydney shot the Australian footage. Producer Mariana Venturi said the scenes of Mr Stafford and his two young children depict their daily routine and interaction, from morning until bedtime, on the family’s rural property in northern NSW.

“Being in communication with our European colleagues and being part of this bigger project is so exciting . . . there’s possibilities for us to do it more and more from now on,” she said.

“It shows that we are part of a wider mission. We have this amazing network of talent of people on different continents and it’s great to be able to collaborate on something like this.”

The project is multi-media and includes podcasts and print resources.

Fathers will be premiered at next month’s GAiN meetings in Amman, Jordan (February 22-March 1). The resources will then be made available for the rest of the world to use.