Vancouver – It’s been six years since Vancouver producer/director Brendan Keown was approached to shoot Hitler Meets Christ – the provocatively titled project, if there ever was one, written by and starring former Law & Order frontman Michael Moriarty.

‘It was a strange coincidence because I’ve always been a fan of Michael’s work,’ says Keown, who produces with Jeremy Dyson through their Vancouver shop Third Tribe Productions.

The dark comedy will debut at next month’s Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose and follows two men who meet at a train station. One, played by Wyatt Page (Valentine), believes he is the son of God. The other, Moriarty, thinks he’s Der Fuerher. It is adapted from a play Moriarty wrote in New York in the early ’90s and took more than six years to complete.

‘We weren’t on someone else’s budget or schedule, and constantly went through this project to add extras and work on sound. We had to be sensitive to the material to make sure we got it right,’ Keown explains. The project is shopping for a distributor.

The film shot in Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside and was a ‘labor of love’ that relied on private contributions, according to Keown. Jonathan Benny (Mount Pleasant) was DOP.

The pet project fits with Moriarty’s reputation as an eccentric, but Keown describes his star and writer as ‘an extremely professional and sensitive individual,’ with whom he felt very comfortable.

‘Actors tend to be eccentric, but I enjoy that,’ he says.