Article
Creed
Egypt
Film & TV
Freedom of Belief
6 min read

The 21: wrestling truth from a story of horror

Remembering the Coptic Martyrs a decade on.

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen and co-host of its Re-enchanting podcast.

An graphic image shows 21 men in orange suits kneeling in front of executioners in black.
MORE Productions.

In 2015, 21 men were kidnapped, tortured, and eventually killed by ISIS. Twenty of those men were Coptic (Egyptian) and one, Matthew, was Ghanian. They were all Christians. And that is why they were killed.  

Over the past decade, the story of their martyrdom has been widely told. And yet, the only piece of visual storytelling that existed was the propaganda video, filmed and released by ISIS. A film that was intended to scare the world and dehumanize the men, a film that glorified violence and hatred.  

We’ve known the story of the men’s execution, but we’ve only known it as told by their executioners.  

That’s no longer the case. On 15 February 2025, ten years since their death, the story of the 21 is being re-told by a team of over seventy artists from 24 countries, directed by Tod Polson, and in collaboration with the global Coptic community. The short film, The 21, will premiere on the anniversary of the men’s death and be featured at film festivals throughout 2025.  

We knew a story, now we’re hearing their story. 

I was able to talk through the details, how and why this short-film was made, with one of its producers – Mandi Hart of MORE Productions. After watching the film a handful of times, and needing ten minutes to recover after every viewing, I had lots to ask Mandi. Firstly, I wanted to know all about the visual aesthetic.   

This film is animated, which feels like both a defiance and a kindness. It’s a defiant choice because it ensures that this film stands in contrast to the film that was released ten years ago, where pure terror was the only story-telling objective. Nothing about this film is reminiscent of that one. And that’s a kindness to us, the audience. We’re not totally spared, however, as carefully selected moments of the original footage are woven into this short film, reminding us that these men – the ones who were killed and the ones who did the killing - were as real as you and I. But, on the whole, we’re spared the worst of the horror. As Mandi noted,  

‘animation allows your imagination to fill in the gaps. It’s just as powerful a form of story-telling, if not more so’.    

Mandi’s right. This film will stop you in your tracks. More than anything, though, the visual aesthetic is an ode to the men who were lost and the community they belong to.  

Director, Tod Polson, travelled to Egypt to meet with Coptic iconographers and learn about the intricate ways they communicate in symbolism, iconography and art. Mandi told me that even details as subtle as the width of a line used or the placement of the eyes on a human face have deep wells of meaning held within them. Polson also visited Minya, the Egyptian region that was home to many of the martyrs, and gathered inspiration from the church that was built there in their honour. The film’s aesthetic derives from all of this, it’s drawn in alignment with what Polson learnt. In other words, the story is told in the language of the martyrs. Through the work of the seventy plus artists, this story is weaved into the story – the Coptic story, the Christian story. It’s rooted and yet timeless, a decade old and yet ancient.  

For the men standing on the beach, an assassin standing behind them, the veil between the seen and unseen was incredibly thin.

The film is a masterclass in learning the language of the ones to whom you’re paying tribute. The artists have honoured the martyrs on their own terms and according to their own story. It’s a special thing.  

It’s also a challenging thing. It’s a harrowing event, after all. It feels as though, through this film, we’re brought closer to the torture the men endured, given details that the mainstream media left unreported. Details such as, the floor they were forced to sleep on was continuously pumped with water, the relentless taunting and manual labour, the beatings, the fact that they were actually put in orange boiler suits, taken to the beach, and filmed three times. It was on the third time that they didn’t return.  

40 days, that’s how long the twenty-one were held for.   

960 hours.  

57,600 minutes. 

3,456,000 seconds.  

The longevity and intensity of the torture is nearly impossible to fathom. The fear they must have felt is mostly unimaginable. Mandi mentioned that she was probed by a continual set of questions as she studied this story, these men, and those days. The questions went along the lines of: what would she be willing to die for? Would she be brave enough to stand her ground? Would she be faithful to what she believes to be true? Would she choose a life without Jesus or a death because of him? It’s a hypothetical set of questions for Mandi, and for me too. But not for the 21 men.  

Finally, I wanted to ask Mandi about the inclusion of supernatural facets of the story – the improvable, un-fact-check-able stuff. If I was to be brave, I guess I would say the truest stuff. The way the heavens seem to open, rage, and weep; the subtle appearances of Jesus’s scarred and bloody feet; the mention of a prayer-fuelled earthquake in the prison; the glimpses of a supernatural army guarding the 21 men as they walked to their death. It’s quite weep-worthy, really. The closer these men get to their execution, the brighter and more vivid the ‘unseen’ becomes. 

Yet, it feels like quite a brave storytelling choice, to meld the provable with the improvable facts of the story.  

 ‘Only to us’, Mandi reminded me. ‘we, the cultural West, struggle with the supernatural stuff. It’s an affront to the ‘rational’. But we’re the minority. The majority, who have less cultural power, they don’t struggle with this stuff at all... ’ 

 This led us to speak about the seen and the unseen elements of reality, how – as Christians – we believe that all that we see is not all that there is. In fact, the things that cannot be seen are the realest things. And how, for the men standing on the beach, an assassin standing behind them, the veil between the seen and unseen was incredibly thin. It’s comfort that often makes the veil thicken out, Mandi reminded me, it’s the left hemisphere of our brains that tells us that all that we see is all that there is. When our safety and comfort are stripped away, what happens? For the twenty-one martyrs, it seems as though the veil became thread bare. As Mandi quite remarkably noted, ‘the human soul knows more than the mind is comfortable admitting’.  

The 21 is a short film about death, the death of 21 innocent men. It’s important that we give these men our attention, look them in the eye and weep with those who weep. But I think, in a way, this short film also tells the story of life. Life after death, life that death doesn’t put an end to. Life that confounds death, even. And in that way, this film tells both a particular story and a universal one, both their story and the story – the Christian story.    

Watch the trailer

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Review
Culture
Film & TV
Purpose
Romance
5 min read

The Four Seasons and Dying for Sex hunt all of life for meaning

The TV shows joining academics exploring what it means to flourish

Giles Gough is a writer and creative who hosts the God in Film podcast.

Two women in a composite image.
Tina Fey and Michelle Williams.

A recent Harvard study revealed an intriguing relationship between religion and how well people feel their lives are going. The study suggests that there is a direct correlation between attendance at religious services and happiness.  

The researchers defined ‘human flourishing’ as encompassing all aspects of a person’s life, including happiness, health, purpose, character, and relationships. Perhaps a snappier way to think of this would be “what does it mean to live a full life?.”  

There must have been something in the air that leads to asking this big question, because two TV shows have come out close to the release of this study, both of which tackle what it means to have a fulfilling life. While science has only turned its attention to this topic recently, artists, philosophers and storytellers have been grappling with this one for centuries, and as science has neither Tina Fey, nor Michelle Williams, let’s see what the story tellers have to say  

The Four Seasons 

The Four Seasons is Netflix’s latest comedy drama series based on a 1981 Alan Alda film of the same name. In it, a group of long-time friends in their fifties, who regularly go on holiday with each other have their whole dynamic rocked when Nick (Steve Carell) tells them he plans to divorce Anne, (Kerri Kenney-Silver) his wife of 25 years. Danny and Claude (Colman Domingo and Marco Calvani) are the group’s only same sex couple, but their warm and hedonistic lifestyle is marred by Danny needing surgery for his heart condition, which he keeps putting off. Our point of view characters are Kate and Jack, played by Tina Fey and Will Forte. Initially positioned as the most normal and stable couple of the group, seeing the unhappiness in their friend’s marriages opens a fissure in their own relationship. Kate gets frustrated that Jack appears to turn into a hypochondriac when they’re in private, and Jack resents his embarrassing secrets being shared by Kate as the butt of a joke. As season one draws to a close, we are unsure if these two will repair their marriage.  

The Four Seasons is a show about wanting your remaining days on this earth to be filled with meaning and passion. Dying for Sex has arguably the same motivation but on a tragically compressed timescale.  

Dying for Sex 

Inspired by the story of Molly Kochan and originally shared on the podcast of the same name, Dying for Sex follows Molly (Michelle Williams) as she receives a diagnosis of Stage IV metastatic breast cancer. In a moment of desperate clarity, she decides to leave her husband, Steve (Jay Duplass) and begins to explore her sexual desires for the first time in her life. Aided by her best friend Nikki (Jenny Slate), Molly dives into the world of online dating, finding partners that range from the kinky to incompetent, and finally compassionate. Molly’s one goal is to experience an orgasm with another person for once in her life. An aim that is hindered by a childhood trauma of sexual abuse. Despite the edginess of the title, Dying for Sex is a heartfelt meditation on what it means to find love just as your body is shutting down on you. It includes perhaps the best depiction of the final stages of life for a person with a terminal illness, the show is worth it for that alone.  

Yet one constant remains for believers and non-believers, and it is as trite as it is true; love is the key to a fulfilled life. 

It is important to note that there is a class element to both of these shows. The Four Seasons places good-looking affluent people in beautiful locations and then invites you to feel invested in their relationship drama, like an episode of 90210 for people in their fifties. Similarly, Dying for Sex sees Molly receive some of the best medical care possible, by virtue of still being on her husband’s health insurance. In a country where free health care is not seen as a basic right, the luxury of the facilities she has to hand starts to seem conspicuous. But this is not oppression Olympics and we’re not here to compare people’s pain. The less money you have will certainly decrease the amount of time you have to ponder the meaning of life, but it’s not a question that should be avoided indefinitely.  

The connection between ‘human flourishing’ may be the type of thing that might get jumped on by pastors around the world. But a note of caution is advised here as to how it’s used. Firstly, the Harvard study does not appear to make any kind of distinction between religions. So, if one were to use this study to endorse being a devout Christian, then the same could be said for being a Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu etc. 

Secondly, if the church tells people that becoming a Christian will statistically increase their chances of happiness, it’s doing them a disservice because Jesus never promised that. He distinctly told his followers: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life[a] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” That’s a difficult line to swallow in the world of retail religion, but it borders on false advertising to ignore it. 

Lastly, as critics have pointed out, even if faith improves happiness, it doesn't make the beliefs automatically true! If used as a guiding principle, the pursuit of happiness could have you swapping churches, denominations, even religions until you find what makes you happiest.  

These two shows stimulate an interesting thought experiment; whether a relationship with God would have made a difference in their lives? For Kate and Jack in The Four Seasons, the answer may well have been yes. For Molly in Dying for Sex the answer is a little trickier. Jesus doesn’t condone a promiscuous lifestyle, but the drive towards that was borne out of a fundamental lack of connection with her husband. The main thing that Jesus does promise his followers is connection, either directly with him, or with those walking the same path.  

You can have a fulfilling life outside of God, it would be disingenuous to say otherwise. Yet one constant remains for believers and non-believers, and it is as trite as it is true; love is the key to a fulfilled life. Molly finally attains it when she finds true love, Jack and Kate begin to lose it when they fear their love might be slipping beyond their grasp. 

But the one area where faith might just differ from the secular is that Jesus lived out his time on this earth as a walking talking example of perfect love. Patient, kind, quick to forgive. The kind of example that’s impossible to completely emulate, but still worth trying. 

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