From Monty Python's irreverent The Life of Brian to Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ, Hollywood's often-iconoclastic interpretations of the gospel story have rarely failed to stir up religious fury. Mel Gibson's bloody account of the final hours of Jesus, The Passion of the Christ, was named the most controversial Hollywood movie of all time by US magazine Entertainment Weekly. Appearing on the same list was the movie adaptation of Dan Brown's blockbuster, The Da Vinci Code.

But a new film covering the last two days of Jesus' life is aiming to stir up a new debate about popular representations of Christ by depicting him as black. Furthermore, the film suggests that the persecution suffered by Jesus may have been racially motivated.

Color of the Cross, written, produced by and starring Haitian-American filmmaker Jean Claude LaMarre opens in the US on Friday. The film is scheduled to open to broader audiences next month.

LaMarre said the film was intended as a step towards rehabilitating the portrayal of black characters in Hollywood films after decades of negative stereotyping.

"The idea of re-imaging is very important to my vision of this story," said LaMarre. "For decades blacks have been the victims of negative imaging... Jesus is a great place to start."

The 1973 musical Jesus Christ, Superstar controversially depicted Judas as a black character while a 1992 film called The Second Coming featured a black Jesus.

Stephenson Humphries-Brooks, an associate professor of religious studies at New York's Hamilton College and author of Cinematic Savior: Hollywood's Making of the American Christ, said, "Color of the Cross is the first film to feature a black lead character in a straight interpretation of the Gospel story -- and that it could have a powerful effect on African-American self-identity by suggesting an alternative to the dominant white stereotype of Jesus as a white European male."

Source: CNN