About Us

About Arcadia Films

ARCADIA FILMS is an independent film producer of documentaries, docudramas, movies for broadcast television and theatrical distribution.

The company was established by the father son team of Richard and Stephen Payne.

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ARCADIA FILMS projects are co-produced and co-directed by Richard and Stephen Payne, a father/son team.
Richard Payne
ARCADIA FILMS projects are co-produced and co-directed by Richard and Stephen Payne, a father/son team.
Stephen Payne

What's in the name "Arcadia"?

Arcadia was the original name given America by its first French Catholic explorers and settlers. Ironically, Samuel de Champlain later misspelled the name - making it Acadia.

The meaning of the name Arcadia stands in the living Catholic tradition of St. Augustine's City of God, St. Thomas More's Utopia and Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. It's a symbol of the Church's call to a culture of personal unity and diversity that discovers the true gifts of life and love through faith - in Christ's Mystical Body, the Church.

The name is also a perennial warning of the deadly consequences of the false salvation held out to us by godless "utopian" ideologies. Direct descendents of these French pioneers, the founders of Arcadia Films seek to live out the love, truth and beauty of their Catholic faith by creating film and television in a new era of discovery - on the small screen, the big screen, and in cyberspace. More...

WHAT'S IN THE NAME ARCADIA?
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WHAT'S IN THE NAME ARCADIA? (Continued)
WHAT'S IN THE NAME ARCADIA? (Continued)

Our Vision

We were privileged to have a private audience with Blessed Pope John Paul II and presented him with some copies of our work. It was the day he published his Letter to Artists and he presented us with personal copies. Its closing words have inspired us since then: "May your art help to affirm that true beauty which, as a glimmer of the Spirit of God, will transfigure matter, opening the human soul to a sense of the eternal."

Arcadia Films seeks to serve that vision in the Spirit of Christ's final mandate: "Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I give you. And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time" (Mt 28:19-20). We seek to do so by the grace of God's Mother Mary, with whom we are all called to say: "My soul magifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my savior" (Luke 1:47).