Momentum for a project is accelerating rapidly as an industry-revered, A-list Hollywood actor and prominent person of faith has cleared initial agency reviews and is currently in talks to attach his name to the film. Cameras are set to roll this November.
The highly anticipated project comes from multi-award-winning filmmaker and investigative journalist Vic Gerami, fresh off the global festival run of his previous feature, ARTSAKH: Armenian Genocide Continues, which racked up 40 Best Documentary Feature awards and was selected at 82 international film festivals. While his prior work focused heavily on raw, immediate regional conflicts, Second Holy Land shifts the focus toward cultural origins, offering an epic investigation into a sacred narrative that mainstream history has left completely unexamined.
SECOND HOLY LAND Film: History Told as Discovery
Despite the historical scope of the subject, Gerami says he has no intention of making a conventional, didactic documentary. Instead, SECOND HOLY LAND is being conceived as a cinematic journey in which the story unfolds layer by layer through mystery, discovery, and visual storytelling.
“I do not want to make a dry, didactic documentary,” Gerami said. “I want audiences to experience discovery. Every chapter should make them wonder what they are going to uncover next, while everything we present is supported by historical scholarship, archaeology, scientific research, archival materials, sacred geography, and interviews with leading clergy, scholars, historians, and experts.”
That approach is intended to make the subject accessible not only to historians, theologians, and practicing Christians, but also to younger generations and mainstream international audiences who may know little about Armenia.
A five-minute Vision Reel has already been produced to show the documentary’s scope, visual direction, and storytelling approach.
Watch the SECOND HOLY LAND Vision Reel
Unearthing Christianity’s Greatest Missing Chapter
The film’s foundational focus aims to unearth Armenia’s role as the literal cradle of early Christian history and human civilization. While mainstream history widely recognizes Armenia as the very first sovereign nation to adopt Christianity as its state religion in A.D. 301, this documentary uncovers a sacred narrative that began centuries earlier.
The film is set to trace breathtaking, nearly two-thousand-year-old Christian heritage footprints, including the first-century apostolic journeys of Jesus’ actual apostles, Saint Thaddeus and Saint Bartholomew, who brought the Gospel to the region in A.D. 43 and A.D. 60, establishing an unbroken line of faith long before Rome recognized the church.
A major focus of the feature will also center on the trajectory of the legendary Holy Lance—the actual spear used by the Roman soldier Longinus to pierce the side of Jesus Christ during the Crucifixion. Brought to the region by the Apostle Thaddeus for safekeeping, this priceless artifact of human history remains preserved to this day at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin. Furthermore, the film delves into compelling geographical and historical evidence tying the rugged landscape directly to the early descendants of Noah and the ancient resting place of the Ark at Mount Ararat, bridging ancient scripture with physical reality.
Armenian Cultural Heritage Under Threat
Azerbaijan has already demolished at least three Armenian churches in occupied Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), including Saint Sargis Church in Mokhrenes, Saint John the Baptist Church in Shushi, and Saint Ascension Church in Berdzor, while other irreplaceable Armenian Christian sites remain at risk. Among them are Amaras Monastery, founded by St. Gregory the Enlightener in the fourth century and where Mesrop Mashtots later established a school teaching the newly created Armenian alphabet, as well as Dadivank Monastery and numerous other churches, monasteries, cemeteries, khachkars, and historic monuments now under Azerbaijani control. Independent heritage monitors have documented both destruction and continuing threats to Armenian cultural sites in the region.
Behind the historical exploration is a more urgent objective. Armenian cultural and Christian heritage has faced destruction and erasure, making the documentation and international visibility of ancient sites increasingly consequential. For Gerami, that vulnerability is one of the principal reasons for making the film now.
“Attention is protection,” he said. “If millions of Christians around the world begin to recognize Armenia as one of Christianity’s great historic centers, it becomes much harder to erase Armenian history, destroy Armenian cultural heritage, or attack the Armenian people without international scrutiny.”
The documentary therefore seeks not merely to record monuments and history, but to place Armenia’s Christian legacy more firmly within the global historical consciousness. “My singular goal is to bring international attention to this crisis to help stop or slow down the systematic destruction of Armenian Christian antiquity and heritage,” Gerami said.
Bringing the World to Armenia through Cinema
The filmmakers also see another potential long-term effect: introducing Armenia to a much larger international audience interested in Christian history and pilgrimage. Faith-based tourism represents a significant segment of international travel, and Armenia possesses a concentration of ancient Christian monasteries, churches, sacred sites, and traditions that remain relatively unknown outside Armenian communities.
“If Armenia attracts even a fraction of that audience, the long-term cultural and economic impact could be enormous,” Gerami said. “Second Holy Land is not simply about looking backward. It is about using Armenia’s extraordinary history to help protect and strengthen its future.”
The project is envisioned not simply as a feature documentary, but as the centerpiece of a broader educational initiative. Plans call for theatrical, broadcast, and streaming distribution, along with educational use through universities, seminaries, churches, museums, libraries, cultural institutions, and other platforms worldwide.
A Critical Stage
SECOND HOLY LAND has now reached the point where its filmmakers are attempting to move from pre-production into principal photography. The producers are actively seeking funding immediately to start filming in Armenia in November.
Funding is being administered through Truth And Accountability League (TAAL), a registered 501(c)(3) public charity founded by Gerami. The production is also offering Founding Producer opportunities with formal Producer Film Credit for supporters participating at designated levels.
For Gerami, the urgency surrounding the financing is directly connected to the larger urgency behind the documentary itself. “We are racing against a silent, highly funded campaign of cultural cleansing that seeks to erase Armenian history and rewrite our place in the origins of Christianity,” Gerami said. “By bringing this history to global audiences, we can make that erasure harder to carry out in silence and create the international scrutiny needed to protect what remains.”
SECOND HOLY LAND is currently in pre-production, with filming expected to begin in Armenia before expanding to additional international locations.
