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Three teen brothers from Ireland have turned their admiration for Blessed Carlo Acutis into a Lego movie about the life of the soon-to-be canonized teenage Italian Catholic who died from leukemia at the age of 15.
The short film called “Lego Movie — The Incredible Life of Carlo Acutis” is now available on YouTube under the name Fiontar Floinn.
Brothers Louis, Iosaf, and Oliver Flynn, ages 16, 14, and 18, from Kilcornan in County Limerick, Ireland, have been making Lego movies since 2015 when they got their hands on an iPad mini. Youngest brother Iosaf’s job is to build the sets and narrate, while Louis and Oliver plan, animate, and do the filming.
Ten years into their efforts, they have now created a movie made with Lego about Blessed Carlo Acutis that dovetails perfectly with the interests and appeal of the young Italian blessed, whose canonization date was delayed because of the death of Pope Francis.
The Flynns told CNA that they found in Acutis a young person whose life and interests resonated deeply with their own.
“We were really inspired by him,” Louis said. “I mean, it’s kind of unprecedented, obviously, that he’s going to be made a saint. He was very unique in the sense that he was very relatable to us.”
In the process of making the movie, which was time-consuming, detailed, and at times frustrating, Louis said he felt the presence of Acutis helping them overcome problems and deal with frustrations.
“Just even with this video, we were having technical problems with it, and we just asked Carlo for his intervention, and I did definitely see a difference when we asked him anything. I can just see things with better clarity,” Louis said.
The release of the short Lego movie is timely as the the rescheduling of Acutis’ canonization is being discussed in Rome.
Louis said he now has a clear and positive commitment to his own Catholic faith. “Definitely, over the last year, I have made a commitment to go to Mass every single day as a bare minimum. I don’t have to have that much discipline to do it, but it means one personal prayer to God every day, which is great, a real blessing.”
The brothers’ previous Lego movies included one on Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe as well as one on St. Patrick. They learned from that production how to make their sets more advanced and detailed.
But Louis said it was a challenge to write the Carlo Acutis script because the Italian teen is so well known and his life has been heavily documented.
“You have a lot of creative license with St. Patrick, which isn’t there with Carlos, because everything is so much more recent,” he said. “So that was, that was a bit more, that was a bit of a challenge, but we just really wanted to share with fellow young people his message and just his way of life.”
Louis explained to CNA the level of detail involved in creating such a movie with Legos.
“Yeah, it generally starts completely off our own minds. We don’t have any screen involved until we actually start filming. So that would involve piecing together the story on each individual movement, for a shot, and that we break that down into figuring out how many Lego sets we’d need to make, or which characters to include.”
Louis explained to CNA the level of detail involved in creating such a movie with Legos.
“Yeah, it generally starts completely off our own minds. We don’t have any screen involved until we actually start filming. So that would involve piecing together the story on each individual movement, for a shot, and that we break that down into figuring out how many Lego sets we’d need to make, or which characters to include.” ■
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