Jesus Christ Airlines

In 1968 dramatic pictures of starving children shocked the world. They helped launch the largest private relief operation in history. Run by Catholic and Protestant clergy, Joint Church Aid, or “Jesus Christ Airlines” as it was known, made more than 5,000 night-flights to a makeshift airport in the bush. Revisiting the scenes of the airlift, the film tells the story of the clergymen who created it. The film was shot in seven countries including Nigeria and Sao Tomé, which served as the airlift’s base. It is a film about compassion in spite of politics. It is told by the airlines’ principle planners, its pilots, its beneficiaries and one of its regular passengers, British author Frederick Forsyth.