"Carry the Light"

20 November 2025

2 mins

Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the Wee Donkey.

A Christmas ad that's actually about, you know, Christmas! Erste have made it a habit to go for it during the festive season, and this year is no exception, and, thematically, their most ambitious film yet. When you hear that an ad has been inspired by the book, it usually means that it's a 'homage' to something that appeared in a D&AD annual, but this time the book in question is the Bible, and fundamentalist Christians wanting to take offence are going to be sorely disappointed. Not even J D Vance would find fault with this.

It opens with a catalogue of cruelty meted out to a donkey since the retirement of Tony Adams, and some viewers will unquestionably worry for the welfare of the poor animal. Indeed, the mistreatment is so graphic that you half expect to hear John Nettles to start pleading for funds for a donkey sanctuary.

But salvation is at hand, and we mean that quite literally, as Mary and Joseph select the little donkey for their ride to Bethlehem.

Directors Daniel Schaefer and Szymon Rose have not held back in either the misfortune of the first part of the film or in the religiosity in the latter part. Appearing to draw influence from the Biblical epics of the 1950s, they have created something that harks back to that era with surprising earnestness.

It has been shrewdly timed. There is an appetite for this kind of traditionalism within the conservative culture that's moved into the ascendancy in the US and beyond, and an idea like this is sure to resonate with them, but it will have broader appeal than that, and seems likely to be much talked about in the next few days.

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