The journey to this point was never linear. Nicholas Rooney studied Latin, Greek, philosophy, and international relations before diplomacy took him to the nerve centre of Europe’s crisis in Ukraine. During his assignment with the European Union at the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe, he saw, firsthand, the unraveling of geopolitical threads most only glimpse in headlines. He walked away from it, not to escape, but to interpret. That choice—perhaps even that fracture—birthed Theatre of Life Productions and gave direction to his cinematic voice.
Bridging Diplomacy and Art
Nicholas Rooney did not discard his past when he began making films. He mined it. His debut, “The Pillars of Heaven,” tells the story of a diplomat searching for meaning during the bloody early years of Ukraine’s current crisis. Filmed during a solitary journey from Christmas Eve to the Epiphany, the film captures a country’s broken spirit and Rooney’s private search for something that might heal it.
The film earned awards in Nice and at the Religion Today Film Festival. Yet the accolades only mattered because they confirmed the work spoke to those who recognized what he had witnessed. “I was never chasing prizes,” said Nicholas Rooney. “I was trying to make sense of the silence between the gunfire.”
From this experience came Theatre of Life Productions. The company reflects a distinct philosophical thread: that film must have memory and that memory must be interrogated. Rooney’s view of cinema owes more to liturgy and literature than to algorithm-fed scripts. He has chosen to remain independent to preserve that freedom. His stories are not composed to please but to reveal.
A Director Who Writes With the Camera
The works that followed deepen that inquiry. “A Father’s Sacrifice” blends historical re-enactment with emotional rawness. “The Wolf in the Moonlight” draws from Russian intellectual traditions to interrogate loneliness and ideological fractures. These are not easy films, but they are urgent ones. With Theatre of Life Productions, Nicholas Rooney is building a library of projects that ask questions others will not touch.
His latest, “Guilty Rebel,” adapts Shakespeare’s long poem “The Rape of Lucrece” and pushes the boundary between film, poetry, and music. Shot inside a 13th-century Italian castle and narrated using archival recordings of Richard Burton, the film weaves together Monteverdi’s compositions, live-action tableaux, and verses that bruise and linger. “It is a feast for the senses and the soul,” Nicholas Rooney has said. “It will inspire you, it will provoke you.”
“Guilty Rebel” is now available to purchase in North America on iTunes, Amazon, Apple TV, YouTube, Microsoft Xbox, Vimeo, and Google Play. His documentary films are accessible to rent and buy via Amazon, Google Play, VUDU, and YouTube Movies. Theatre of Life Productions has prioritized making its catalog directly available to audiences across digital platforms, rejecting industry gatekeepers when necessary.
The Way Forward Is Memory
Nicholas Rooney is not finished with Ukraine. He is currently developing a follow-up to “The Pillars of Heaven” titled “The Careless Tomb.” This next film will trace the deepening conflict and return to his original reflections about justice, suffering, reconciliation and the nature of war and peace. Rather than editorialize on current events, he intends to capture what remains when the noise recedes.
In all his work, Nicholas Rooney treats cinema not as a commodity, but as testimony. His stories do not wrap cleanly. His protagonists—diplomats, soldiers, priests, rebels—bear the contradictions of history. They pray, fail, persevere, and carry secrets to their graves. Theatre of Life Productions continues to produce these meditations without apology.
That makes Nicholas Rooney rare—not rare because of fame or flair, but because he refuses to forget. His cinema asks the audience to remember what mattered and what still does.