“A Great Awakening,” the newest film from Sight & Sound, premiering April 3 from Roadside Attractions, tells the true story of an unlikely friendship that helped spark one of the defining religious and cultural movements in early America.

The film centers on Reverend George Whitefield, whose “thundering proclamation of liberty in Christ” helped unite a generation on the brink of collapse. One of Whitefield’s closest friends and most influential promoters is depicted as Benjamin Franklin, the inventive publisher and statesman who learns that “true liberty cannot only be written into law — it must be awakened in the hearts of the people.”

Josh Enck, president of Sight & Sound and Chief Story Officer, said the project grew out of a long-running mission to bring the Bible and its stories to life in immersive ways.

“We’ve been bringing the Bible to life on stage for 50 years in a really big, immersive way,” Enck said. He added that films are “like our missionary,” adding that “theaters [are] the host that sends it out.”

The idea for the Revolutionary-era film arrived after a period of creative struggle, Enck said, and a personal conviction that the theme of liberty belonged at the center of the work.

“The word Liberty just continually resounded in my mind and my spirit,” he said. “The Lord even gave me a dream, a literal dream, of the Liberty Bell swinging left to right in our theater.”

Originally considering a story focused on George Washington, Enck said he was redirected to Whitefield by a spiritual prompting.

“You have liberty right. You have your George’s wrong,” he recalled God saying, prompting the team to follow a different historical throughline. The resulting script emphasizes the surprising alliance between Whitefield and Franklin, a friendship that Enck characterized as “this unlikely couple” whose combined influence helped spark the “first Great Awakening.”

The film’s producers said the personal bond between the charismatic evangelist and the pragmatic publisher struck them.

“This unlikely couple, you know, these opposites,” Enck said. “The Lord providentially set them up, the world’s most powerful evangelist with the world’s most prolific communicator, and together, they sparked the great revolution, the great revelations of the first Great Awakening.”

Sight & Sound’s move into filmmaking follows a period of adaptation for the Lancaster-based ministry, which is best known for its live Biblical productions. The pandemic, Enck said, propelled the organization’s expansion into film and streaming. Sight & Sound’s filmed “Jesus” production, created in 2018 for a planned event and later distributed more widely, had a surprising impact, he said.

“We ended up giving it to TBN, and they aired it internationally for three days over Easter weekend, and more people saw a Sight & Sound production in three days than if we had two years of sold-out shows in both theaters,” Enck said.

That turn came at a steep cost: “It was our worst economic year in our history,” Enck acknowledged, “and it was our greatest ministry outreach year in our history.” He said the experience affirmed a new approach to ministry—not just inviting audiences to theaters but taking cinematic stories into the wider world.

“A Great Awakening” aims to be a family-friendly, historically grounded film that introduces younger viewers to formative moments in American religious and civic history. Enck noted the educational and cultural stakes involved.

“It’s our responsibility to take our children to things like a Great Awakening, like to Sight & Sound, for them to experience aspects of our history that they’re not going to pick up from even private schools.”

He stressed that the film is not designed to legislate faith into the past: “This film is not out to prove or disprove the faith of our founding fathers, or to try to prove that Ben Franklin was a Christian. It’s a real, true story about this friendship that created this revolution.”

For Sight & Sound, the project represents a continuation rather than a departure. Enck remains involved in stage productions as an executive producer while nurturing a new film division and raising teams to shepherd future projects.

“I’m as passionate as ever about Sight & Sound Ministries Incorporated,” he said.

“A Great Awakening” will release in theaters on April 3. For more information, visit agreatawakening.com.