The former basketball star is on a new mission – to bring racial reconciliation to the world through a powerful new movie
By Dan Wooding, Founder of ASSIST Ministries
LOS ANGELES, CA — A.C. Green, who currently owns the NBA Iron Man title, having played in 1,192 straight games and has won a world championship ring with the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1999-2000 season, now has a new passion in his life. He wants to bring racial reconciliation through the world.
As part of this, A.C. Green’s film company, Green-Wheeler Productions, has just released a powerful new movie called “Final Solution,” a feature film which is 1 hour and 45 minutes in length, and is already causing a stir wherever it is shown and has been aired on 45 PBS Stations in the United States.
In an interview, Green, who is 6 feet 9 inches tall and a committed Christian, talked about the film for which he served as executive producer.
“The ‘Final Solution’ is based on the story of a white Afrikaner gentleman from South Africa called Gerrit Wolfaardt,” he said. “His hero and mentor was Adolph Hitler and he believed that the way to bring South Africa back to its truest natural form was to adapt the Hitler mentality of the ‘Final Solution.’ His ‘Final Solution’ was the genocide of the black man and of the black race itself. So he and his comrades developed militia groups that terrorized townships and villages basically trying to destroy everything in sight.
“This went on over a short period of time and what happened was this gentleman wound up experiencing a Saul-to-Paul transformation. Once this transformation took place in his heart, he went back to those same townships and villages asking the people there for forgiveness. He not only wanted forgiveness, but he had a passion to try and reconcile himself with those he had wronged. I can’t say enough that those in those communities weren’t really the most welcoming committees when they saw him coming.
“He now has a ministry and a vision and passion that he and his wife, they live in Colorado Springs, and they travel around the country speaking on racial reconciliation and the power of forgiveness.”
A.C. Green said that the movie was shot on location outside of Cape Town and almost all of the actors and actresses are from South Africa. “Although it is based in South Africa, it has a strong message for America, which is about the power of forgiveness and the need to reconcile with those that we have wronged.
The ex-basketball star said that he was “partially disappointed” that he wasn’t able to travel to South Africa for the shooting of the film. “I say partially disappointed because during the shooting of this time on location, I missed it for only one small reason and that was because I was in the NBA finals at the time with the Laker’s,” he said with a huge smile.
A.C. said that the movie was shown on national television in South Africa on January 17th of this year on the National Day of Reconciliation there and he now travels around the United States showing the movie and speaking on the subject of forgiveness and reconciliation.”
“This message is strongly needed in America still and I have found in my travels throughout the States, inside of churches, we have denominational racism that goes on, and we have churches not wanting to fellowship with other churches because of whatever indifference they find. Outside of the church world, we still have those who still want to live in a generation past and are not willing to look past the differences between us. We definitely have to keep this message to the forefront.
“One of the most amazing things happened to me during this past Saturday afternoon. I was in Denver, Colorado, showing the movie and I spoke about the power of forgiveness to about 15,000 men. A couple of hours after my presentation, one of the men found me in this arena and he was a white gentleman, and he said, ‘I need to ask for your forgiveness, because I held racism in my heart and I have just not let it go. Then I heard what you said and watched your film and I need to make a change. I can’t look to anyone else, but my heart is telling me that I need to make a change and I want to start right now and I just want to ask you to forgive me for what I have held in my heart against black people.’ It was one of the most sobering, staggering encounters I have had regarding showing the film and it was just awesome.
“And that is indicative of what needs to take place. That one person dealing with themselves first; not worrying about anyone else outside of their household; one person at a time can and will and change things and that’s what I think needs to happen.”
The project came about when filmmaker Cristóbal Krusen began working on a story about the end of the apartheid era in South Africa a dozen years ago. His research led him to Gerrit Wolfaardt, a reformed white supremacist who had proposed mass genocide as a solution to South Africa’s racial woes.
The project remained little more than a script and a passion until the year 2000 when sufficient finances were finally raised to begin principal photography began in South Africa. The project was finally completed and ready for broadcast in the fall of 2002. In June of 2003, it was released for the home video market. Video rental market distribution is being handled by Heartland Video (281-578-0023) Christian market distribution is by Crown Video (1-800-661-9467). International distribution of the film is through PorchLight Entertainment (310-477-8400).