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Logline

Through food and the rhythm of fasting and feasting, VLADIKA tells the story of a small-town Texas boy who became an Orthodox archbishop and made strangers family around his table.

Synopsis

A boy from small-town Texas enters a Greek Orthodox church. He cannot understand a word, but senses that something is taking place. He stays.

He becomes Archbishop Dmitri of Dallas, helping an ancient faith take root across the American South. At home, he cooks. Strangers arrive hungry and leave with a place to belong.

Told through food, hospitality, and the rhythm of fasting and feasting, VLADIKA explores a life in which feeding people and caring for their souls were inseparable. When his body is discovered incorrupt five years after his death, those who knew him receive the news with recognition. They remember the man who welcomed them to dinner.

Meet the Filmmakers

Josh David Jordan — Director
Josh David Jordan is a Texas filmmaker who builds films from nothing and finds them an audience anyway. He got his start acting — including a memorable turn on Scrubs — before moving behind the camera to direct music videos for The Polyphonic Spree and Rhett Miller of the Old 97’s. His debut feature, This World Won’t Break, was self-financed for $36,000, won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Dallas International Film Festival, and went on to win more than a dozen festival awards worldwide before landing distribution. His second feature, El Tonto Por Cristo — the first English-language Eastern Orthodox narrative film — skipped the traditional festival route entirely, instead touring theaters across the country and drawing audiences as far as Romania and Greece. Josh doesn’t wait for a green light to tell a story worth telling; he builds the audience himself, one screening at a time. Vladika is the next film he’s determined to bring to life, and he’s doing it the same way: with the support of people who believe the story deserves to be told.

Jessica Marie Jordan — Producer
Jessica Marie Jordan is a Dallas-based producer and entrepreneur in independent cinema. A founding member and vocalist of The Polyphonic Spree, she spent years touring internationally, experience that shaped a distribution model built on live gatherings and direct audience connection. She produced El Tonto Por Cristo, a family-made film shared with audiences through a national theatrical roadshow, and continues to build a body of work with director Josh David Jordan that helps define an emerging genre they call sacramental cinema

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Contact

For inquiries, please contact [email protected].