Exclusive — ‘Mother Teresa & Me’ Filmmaker Thierry Cagianut: We’re Trying to ‘Inspire People’

Thierry Cagianut, the filmmaker and producer behind the forthcoming movie Mother Teresa & Me, told Breitbart News Saturday that the film aims to “inspire people” to bring back little acts of kindness and compassion in an increasingly dark world.

The film, Cagianut explained, tells the fictional story of an Indian woman, Kavita, who finds herself with an unexpected pregnancy. She is abandoned by her boyfriend and is “completely desperate, [and] confused” and even considers an abortion. The pressures of life pile up and she returns to her town in India to “find herself,” connecting with her nanny. Her nanny shared stories of Mother Teresa’s work in Calcutta. Through her nanny, Kavita “meets” Mother Teresa and feels inspired.

“And through her she meets you know, Mother Teresa, because everybody that I would say, is 30 years old today has no recollection of Mother Teresa. They may have heard of her but they don’t really know who she was,” Cagianut said.

“The nanny, she works at the Missionaries of Charity at the House of the Dying,” he explained. “And she starts reading the letters that Mother Teresa had left where she speaks about her sense of abandonment by Jesus, you know, she felt abandoned by Jesus and she called it a darkness that she was feeling. So she discovered that and chose to read the letter that Mother Teresa had left where she speaks about her sense of abandonment by Jesus. She felt abandoned by Jesus and she called it a, you know,  this darkness that she was feeling,” he continued, explaining that Kavita felt a “kinship to Mother Teresa” and starts working there and ultimately begins turning her life around.

Cagianut said he hopes the film’s characters will inspire more individuals as well, as Mother Teresa was a human who sometimes felt like she lost faith but continued and inspired “countless other people.”

“And today where so many people feel like victims, you know, and this kind of mentality: ‘You’re a victim, don’t do anything about it,’ you know? To see that example, know you have to fight, get up, do it, you know, and take care of others. You know, that’s — it’s very inspiring message for everyone from all walks of life, whether you’re a believer or not,” he continued, detailing Mother Teresa’s life of honoring Jesus’s charge and taking care of the “poorest of the poor.”

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“Because when people see how much she suffered, and despite the suffering, she keeps looking for God. She kept longing, she kept working, and she was looking basically for Jesus in the poor people. So that — and we are trying to get that spirit of Mother Teresa into the world because in today’s world, you know, war, internal strife — [it] is almost only bad news,” he said, adding that everyone can be inspired and show Jesus in their own lives with acts of kindness and compassion to others.

“For whatever — you can help someone crossing the street. You can help somebody shopping for groceries. You don’t have to do big things, you know. She used to say, you know, do small … acts. But in the eyes of God, they’re great,” he said, adding  that the “idealistic goal behind this movie is to inspire people to do really small acts of kindness” and show “love and compassion.”

“And that’s the very big goal,” he added.

Tickets are on sale now for the Oct. 5 in-theater event through Fathom Events.

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