Inside Darkness
When he’s not serving as a chaplain to a monastery of contemplative nuns in the heart of Hollywood, Dominican Fr. Dominic DeLay is making films. 
His latest, Inside Darkness, is a 35-minute political suspense thriller that has its origins in the last presidential election, when DeLay said he was left with the question of how good and smart people could think so differently from himself about politics.
Inside Darkness is about three presidential candidates–the female evangelical incumbent, a black Catholic and former Marine colonel, and white agnostic religious studies professor–who awaken in a dark cell. 
“I thought I’d just put three very different people in this room together and see how they treat one another. Forget why they believe what they do. Can they at least respect each other and have a conversation?”
But can they?
“It’s very difficult for them,” said DeLay. “Fear and suspicion really kick in. After awhile, their suspicion turns from the people they think are outside the room to each other.”
A conversation with his sister gave him some insights why people react to candidates and politics they way they do.
“I understood she just had a couple of really strong beliefs and she was looking at the candidates through that prism. I think we must have certain fundamental beliefs that we look at the world with, and so we hear everything in relationship to that.”
DeLay went on: “If people aren’t talking about the poor, one kind of person is going to say, ‘Well, what’s going on here?’ And for others, if people aren’t talking about what they call traditional family values, then they can’t hear that candidate.”
The film, which is available on DVD, was released by Mud Puddle Films, a non-profit ministry of the Dominican friars of the Western United States.
Starting October 13, the film will be released in free seven-minute webisodes with the last installment the day before the election on November 4th.
DeLay is starting a new film on the seven deadly sins. When asked which one he thought was the worst sin, he said he would go with the “traditional assessment of pride as the ‘deadliest’ sin and perhaps even the root of the others.”
The sin of pride with politics makes for a natural sequel.
