Father Stan Fortuna raps, plays jazz guitar and travels the world – bringing a heavily Bronx-accented message of peace, self-respect and spirituality to kids as far afield as Portugal, Uganda and the Caribbean.

And since last year, Toronto director/producer Kim Yu has been following him, shooting footage for her low-budget profile of the one-of-a-kind preacher, Sent. As in ‘heaven sent.’

‘Sent is less about religion and less about Catholicism than it is about Father Stan as a person, as a human being who is just trying to reach out to young people from all walks of life – to get them to help themselves,’ says Yu.

She’s already followed Fortuna through the U.S. and will shoot his appearance at the unnervingly named Dante Alighieri Academy, one of Toronto’s larger inner-city schools, on May 19.

‘The focus is going to be on how I try to use the gifts that God gave me,’ says Fortuna, on the phone from New York, ‘and to help the young people to see that they’re gifted even if they don’t feel gifted or even if they don’t like the gifts they have.

‘But who knows what’s going to happen? So much changes when I’m in the room with the people I’m actually speaking to, you know what I’m saying?’

The project is shooting under the banner of Critical Culture Films, a joint effort between Yu’s Blue Moon Communications and Fortuna’s nonprofit outfit Francesco Productions, part of a two-year option deal to turn out projects inspired by his life and work. A portion of the proceeds will go to charity.

Yu is shopping for a distributor and plans to wrap this spring or summer. In the meantime, sales agent Breakaway Entertainment is taking the footage to market at Cannes this month.