Photos by Philippe Kradolfer
At 1:30 in the morning, Landry Townsend and Niki Rahimi emerged from customs at the tiny Ouarzazate Airport looking impossibly awake after nearly two days of travel. I laughed and said, “You two look remarkably fresh.”
Landry smiled and shot back, “We’re actors.”
That may have been the understatement of the year.
While Yael Slonim (Miriam) and Yael Kraitzer (Talia) are both from Israel, they needed some bonding time like everyone else.
Over the next three days, eight more young women arrived from around the world to join in the cast of The Ten Virgins. In addition to Landry and Niki from the United States, Mahlia Chellembrom, Alliyah Mai Murkri, Reya-Nyomi Brown, Nadia Kamalli, and Elodie Wilton arrived from the United Kingdom. Laura Wedel traveled from Spain. Yael Kraitzer and Yael Slonim came from Israel.
None has been in a major theatrical release.
All of them will someday.
Yes, they are that talented.
What makes this gathering remarkable is not only their talent, but their backgrounds. Two are of Iranian descent and still have family in Iran. Others come from Israel, Europe, and America. Naturally, I wondered what it would feel like to place young people from nations divided by politics, religion, and conflict into the same desert production in Morocco.
Bonding didn’t just happen between the girls, it happened with the animals. Yael Kraitzer plays Talia, and had some bonding time with a newborn kid named Chad-gaya.
Then something beautiful happened.
They stopped seeing differences and started discovering each other.
And that may be the real story of The Ten Virgins.
Our small American crew consists entirely of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Our Moroccan crew of more than fifty are Muslims. Our cast includes Jews, Christians, and people from multiple cultures and nations — all working together to tell a story about faith, devotion, and preparation.
Are we all not children of Abraham?
Yael Slonim is Miriam, the shepherdess, and got to know one of her lambs.
That same spirit of diversity is woven into the story itself. One young woman walks with a club foot and relies on a crutch. Another has traveled from Ethiopia. One is poor and skeptical; another comes from wealth and privilege. Some are bold and confident. Others are shy, wounded, uncertain, or searching for belonging.
Yet one of the central messages of The Ten Virgins is that every soul has value in the Kingdom of God. Whether rich or poor, wounded or whole, confident or afraid — He knows us.
And He loves us.
