Madison filmmaker Rafael Ragland will host a free screening of his new film, “Where Scriptures Breathe,” at 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 26, at Madison’s Central Library. Diane Ballweg, who has also supported Madison365, sponsored the film.
Ragland describes the film as geared toward young people.
“It’s a very powerful and uplifting faith-based movie,” he said in an interview for the 365 Amplified podcast. The story follows an 11-year-old girl whose parents, who are not originally from the area, are detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She goes to live with her grandmother, who raises her in the church. The girl enters a scripture competition, similar to a spelling bee, where the winner receives a four-year scholarship to a missionary college.
Listen to the podcast interview:
The lead role is played by Ragland’s own daughter, who is 11, in her acting debut. “She wanted to do a movie, and I’m like, okay, well, I’m going to find something for you,” he said. Ragland said the cast includes young actors he brought in from as far away as Chicago and Kentucky, many of them appearing in their first film.
Filming began in March, and the film premiered at Union South in July. Ragland said he received calls and messages the next day asking him to show it again. He recalled one viewer who told him: “I had to get up and leave because I didn’t want my girl to see me cry.” Ballweg missed the July premiere, and the Central Library screening gives her a chance to see it, Ragland said.
Ragland said everyone is welcome, whether or not they are religious. “I think it’s open to everybody,” he said.
From rap to film
Ragland grew up loving music rather than movies, he said, and worked as a rapper. As he got older, he decided a change was in order. “I can’t be 40 years old on stage trying to rap,” he recalled telling a friend.
He began making films around 2010 under the banner of 608 TV. His first, “Dead Man’s Debt,” drew on friends who were involved in “street life” and depicted a young man’s path toward either jail or death. Ragland wrote, directed and filmed it, using local actors. He screened it at Market Square Theater on Odana Road, where he said about 400 people came to a house of roughly 370 seats. “I was like, wow, maybe I’m on to something,” he said.
Ragland said he has made about 20 films since then under his company, Grateful Films. He said he has also worked with Tyler Perry and Steven Spielberg, which led him to travel more and to move away from the 608 TV name. He holds his premieres at Union South and then looks for other venues for people who missed them.
Why film
Ragland said he gives a platform to local and aspiring actors who cannot afford film school. He said he uses storytelling to let people see where choices lead. He described a young man who told him he wanted to be a big-time gangster and asked to make a movie about it, and was surprised when he learned his character would die at the end of the film.
“I said, well, if you want to be a gangster, you’re going to have to finish the role,” Ragland said. The character had to meet the end that such stories usually reach, and Ragland said he wanted the young man to see that outcome play out. “I like to see it play out, and other people can see it,” he said.
Ragland, who is Black, said his casts have often been mostly Black, and that many African American actors have told him he is the only filmmaker offering them the opportunity. He said he wants his stories to reach a wider audience. “I don’t want to tell a Black story. I want to tell an American or a human story,” he said.
A school for young filmmakers
Ragland is working with Ballweg to open a nonprofit educational resource center where young people ages 8 to 21 could learn filmmaking and acting for free. He said classes would start in spring 2027 and run through the fall, with students making a film during that time and a premiere serving as their graduation.
Ragland said he is looking for a location and may start by renting space before finding a permanent home. He said he wants the program to continue “long after me” and to teach young people who spend time on social media how to “make it look good.”
“Where Scriptures Breathe” screens at 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 26, at Central Library. Admission is free.
