The Deeper Story: Princeton media entrepreneur tackles projects with Christian, spiritual roots
March 18, 2025 at 10:42 a.m.
To interact with filmmaker and author Robert Orlando is to be invited to think deeply and critically about real-life events and people, many of them of particular import to people of faith.
A member of St. Paul Parish, Princeton, Orlando’s passion for delving deeply into public figures and their impact on the wider culture includes one published book on St. Paul with another book in the making; “The Shroud: Face to Face,” a 2023 book and film on the Shroud of Turin; and “The Divine Plan,” a 2019 book and film on the collaboration between Pope John Paul II and President Ronald Reagan in defeating communism in the Soviet Union.
Orlando's book “Karl Marx: The Divine Tragedy” will be published on May 29, and will be available for pre-sale with TAN books. A movie based on the book is anticipated later this year; both are “a spiritual exploration of Marx as an alternative to Christianity” rather than a political critique, he explained.
Recently collaborating with St. Paul scholars with whom he worked on “The Shroud: Face to Face,” Orlando has embarked on a St. Paul-inspired podcast “Ektroma.” The discussions will include pondering the saint’s message from Gal 3:28, a contrast to today’s identity politics.
“Paul is saying in our contingent selves we are men and women, Jew and Greek, we are master, slave – today would be corporate owner and employee,” he continued. “The modern message is that those distinctions are for the few to abuse the many. Paul is saying no, in Christ … we are able to love in spite of that … Cultural distinctions don’t go away, they take on a new meaning in Christ.”
Foundation in Storytelling
“In a certain way, they choose me,” Orlando said of the subjects and stories he tells through both lens and page. “It’s usually that I have questions that I don’t have a good answer for, and don’t feel anyone else does, so it’s usually then I know I have to attack it.”
Robert OrlandoOrlando’s inspiration sprang from a profound spiritual awakening he had at 17 years old.
“It was as if the spiritual world suddenly became real, and the words of Scripture – especially Paul’s letters – came alive in a way I had never experienced before,” he recalled. “This journey didn’t happen all at once – it was a spark that kept growing, shaping the way I engage with ideas … It was truly a rebirth … I wasn’t just feeling God’s presence – I was awakening to ... a hunger for truth that extended beyond faith.”
That hunger drove a desire to explore art, philosophy, literature and history, and to present them through multi-media.
“I realized that faith wasn’t just something to believe but something to see – woven into every aspect of human experience,” he said. “That’s when I decided to go to film school, drawn to storytelling to explore these deeper realities.”
Whether writing, conversing in front of or behind a microphone or camera lens, Orlando’s storytelling began by making films as an 8-year-old with a Super 8 mm camera, and a model set by family.
“When I grew up, the old generation still had relatives in Italy,” he said. “They would send letters and pictures – think how valuable a picture is when you haven’t seen someone in 20-25 years, and you can’t call them on the phone.”
While in film school, Orlando’s grandfather died in Brooklyn, N.Y.; in his home, a treasure of film reels and tapes was discovered in old boxes.
“He had documented the history of his family from immigration up to the 1970s,” he said of the glass plates, photos, Super 8 and 16 mm film that showed his aunts and uncles going about daily life. Orlando turned these into his own documentary, “La Famiglia,” interspersed with interviews of relatives on how important family was to Italian immigrants.
Beginning with a bachelor’s degree from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, Orlando worked first in independent film, directing shorts and writing numerous feature scripts. Upon moving to Princeton in 2005 he launched Nexus Media, which assisted such institutions as Princeton University, Johnson & Johnson, Merrill Lynch and Novartis with their communications through innovative media and branding.
About 10 years later, Orlando sought to move into faith-infused projects, founding two Princeton-based nonprofits: The Pauline Institute, dedicated to the latest research and insights on the life of St. Paul from an ecumenical standpoint, and The Nexus Institute, which focuses on TV, motion pictures, books and screenplays, along with award-winning documentaries and shorts.
A Return to the Church
“I’ve raised my family in Princeton, where faith has always been a foundation in both personal and professional life,” said Orlando. “The grounding of home has been essential in shaping my work – faith isn’t just an intellectual pursuit; it’s something lived daily.”
As a young man, he acknowledged that his search for a Catholic youth group that read Scripture prompted a search outside the Church. “That gap left me searching, questioning, and exploring other traditions, ideas and historical perspectives,” he said.
He calls his return to the Catholic faith “a long and layered one, woven with personal experiences, philosophical exploration, and theological inquiry.”
Over time, his engagement with theology deepened, and “I found myself drawn back – not just to the Church’s teachings but [also] to its intellectual tradition, its history and its power to shape culture. Catholicism, for me, is not just a set of doctrines but a narrative – a story about truth, redemption, and the human struggle that I have sought to explore in my books and films.”
Most of Orlando’s ministry has unfolded through his work “on the road” as he characterizes it, through books, films and presentations mostly on college campuses or in Catholic parishes.
“That seems to be the way the Church has called me to serve: by bringing these ideas into broader cultural conversations, helping people wrestle with history, faith, and meaning in a way that engages both the spirit and the imagination.”
Connection with St. Paul
Having recently earned a master’s degree in biblical studies from Princeton Theological Seminary, Orlando is currently pursuing a second PTS master’s in religion and society. His Pauline podcast “Ektroma” – Greek for “out of time” – will soon be available to the public.
Robert Orlando speaks with a collaborator on the set of his upcoming Ektroma podcast. Photo courtesy of Nexus Media
“Paul thought of himself as being born out of time,” Orlando said, someone “who wasn’t born in the lineage of the 12 apostles ... to challenge their assumptions … it defined his personality – where did his authority come from? Could he challenge those who walked and talked with Jesus with his own vision?”
As he probed his spirituality as a teen, “Paul became my avatar, the person through whom I would see most of everything I did,” said Orlando, who noted how intensely he identified with Paul’s journey. His first book on the saint in 2014, “Apostle Paul: A Polite Bribe,” delves into St. Paul’s efforts to pull together the early Christian communities.
“He spent most of his mission trying to unify the ideologies of his time, and he could not get them to fully reconcile,” Orlando said. “The ethnic and political fragmenting and factions that were going on in the Christian movement at the time was the cause for his letters.”
For more on Orlando’s media, visit www.robomantix.com, www.nexusinstitutesite.org or www.apostlepaulsite.com. To be notified when the Ektroma podcast becomes available, visit www.thepaulineinstitute.org/podcast. For information on Orlando’s upcoming talks, email [email protected].
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To interact with filmmaker and author Robert Orlando is to be invited to think deeply and critically about real-life events and people, many of them of particular import to people of faith.
A member of St. Paul Parish, Princeton, Orlando’s passion for delving deeply into public figures and their impact on the wider culture includes one published book on St. Paul with another book in the making; “The Shroud: Face to Face,” a 2023 book and film on the Shroud of Turin; and “The Divine Plan,” a 2019 book and film on the collaboration between Pope John Paul II and President Ronald Reagan in defeating communism in the Soviet Union.
Orlando's book “Karl Marx: The Divine Tragedy” will be published on May 29, and will be available for pre-sale with TAN books. A movie based on the book is anticipated later this year; both are “a spiritual exploration of Marx as an alternative to Christianity” rather than a political critique, he explained.
Recently collaborating with St. Paul scholars with whom he worked on “The Shroud: Face to Face,” Orlando has embarked on a St. Paul-inspired podcast “Ektroma.” The discussions will include pondering the saint’s message from Gal 3:28, a contrast to today’s identity politics.
“Paul is saying in our contingent selves we are men and women, Jew and Greek, we are master, slave – today would be corporate owner and employee,” he continued. “The modern message is that those distinctions are for the few to abuse the many. Paul is saying no, in Christ … we are able to love in spite of that … Cultural distinctions don’t go away, they take on a new meaning in Christ.”
Foundation in Storytelling
“In a certain way, they choose me,” Orlando said of the subjects and stories he tells through both lens and page. “It’s usually that I have questions that I don’t have a good answer for, and don’t feel anyone else does, so it’s usually then I know I have to attack it.”
Robert OrlandoOrlando’s inspiration sprang from a profound spiritual awakening he had at 17 years old.
“It was as if the spiritual world suddenly became real, and the words of Scripture – especially Paul’s letters – came alive in a way I had never experienced before,” he recalled. “This journey didn’t happen all at once – it was a spark that kept growing, shaping the way I engage with ideas … It was truly a rebirth … I wasn’t just feeling God’s presence – I was awakening to ... a hunger for truth that extended beyond faith.”
That hunger drove a desire to explore art, philosophy, literature and history, and to present them through multi-media.
“I realized that faith wasn’t just something to believe but something to see – woven into every aspect of human experience,” he said. “That’s when I decided to go to film school, drawn to storytelling to explore these deeper realities.”
Whether writing, conversing in front of or behind a microphone or camera lens, Orlando’s storytelling began by making films as an 8-year-old with a Super 8 mm camera, and a model set by family.
“When I grew up, the old generation still had relatives in Italy,” he said. “They would send letters and pictures – think how valuable a picture is when you haven’t seen someone in 20-25 years, and you can’t call them on the phone.”
While in film school, Orlando’s grandfather died in Brooklyn, N.Y.; in his home, a treasure of film reels and tapes was discovered in old boxes.
“He had documented the history of his family from immigration up to the 1970s,” he said of the glass plates, photos, Super 8 and 16 mm film that showed his aunts and uncles going about daily life. Orlando turned these into his own documentary, “La Famiglia,” interspersed with interviews of relatives on how important family was to Italian immigrants.
Beginning with a bachelor’s degree from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, Orlando worked first in independent film, directing shorts and writing numerous feature scripts. Upon moving to Princeton in 2005 he launched Nexus Media, which assisted such institutions as Princeton University, Johnson & Johnson, Merrill Lynch and Novartis with their communications through innovative media and branding.
About 10 years later, Orlando sought to move into faith-infused projects, founding two Princeton-based nonprofits: The Pauline Institute, dedicated to the latest research and insights on the life of St. Paul from an ecumenical standpoint, and The Nexus Institute, which focuses on TV, motion pictures, books and screenplays, along with award-winning documentaries and shorts.
A Return to the Church
“I’ve raised my family in Princeton, where faith has always been a foundation in both personal and professional life,” said Orlando. “The grounding of home has been essential in shaping my work – faith isn’t just an intellectual pursuit; it’s something lived daily.”
As a young man, he acknowledged that his search for a Catholic youth group that read Scripture prompted a search outside the Church. “That gap left me searching, questioning, and exploring other traditions, ideas and historical perspectives,” he said.
He calls his return to the Catholic faith “a long and layered one, woven with personal experiences, philosophical exploration, and theological inquiry.”
Over time, his engagement with theology deepened, and “I found myself drawn back – not just to the Church’s teachings but [also] to its intellectual tradition, its history and its power to shape culture. Catholicism, for me, is not just a set of doctrines but a narrative – a story about truth, redemption, and the human struggle that I have sought to explore in my books and films.”
Most of Orlando’s ministry has unfolded through his work “on the road” as he characterizes it, through books, films and presentations mostly on college campuses or in Catholic parishes.
“That seems to be the way the Church has called me to serve: by bringing these ideas into broader cultural conversations, helping people wrestle with history, faith, and meaning in a way that engages both the spirit and the imagination.”
Connection with St. Paul
Having recently earned a master’s degree in biblical studies from Princeton Theological Seminary, Orlando is currently pursuing a second PTS master’s in religion and society. His Pauline podcast “Ektroma” – Greek for “out of time” – will soon be available to the public.
Robert Orlando speaks with a collaborator on the set of his upcoming Ektroma podcast. Photo courtesy of Nexus Media
“Paul thought of himself as being born out of time,” Orlando said, someone “who wasn’t born in the lineage of the 12 apostles ... to challenge their assumptions … it defined his personality – where did his authority come from? Could he challenge those who walked and talked with Jesus with his own vision?”
As he probed his spirituality as a teen, “Paul became my avatar, the person through whom I would see most of everything I did,” said Orlando, who noted how intensely he identified with Paul’s journey. His first book on the saint in 2014, “Apostle Paul: A Polite Bribe,” delves into St. Paul’s efforts to pull together the early Christian communities.
“He spent most of his mission trying to unify the ideologies of his time, and he could not get them to fully reconcile,” Orlando said. “The ethnic and political fragmenting and factions that were going on in the Christian movement at the time was the cause for his letters.”
For more on Orlando’s media, visit www.robomantix.com, www.nexusinstitutesite.org or www.apostlepaulsite.com. To be notified when the Ektroma podcast becomes available, visit www.thepaulineinstitute.org/podcast. For information on Orlando’s upcoming talks, email [email protected].