When in Rome, Mormons are a foreign concept, people living in strange colonies across the Atlantic. When in Paris, Mormons may simply be women who live in water with fins for legs.

For years, church leaders have assured members that "we are a peculiar people." It was exactly that concept that inspired Daryn Tufts and Jed Knudsen to create their documentary "American Mormon" in 2005. Now, one year after the film's release, the pair has taken the project one step further.

In "American Mormon in Europe," a sequel documentary released Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2006, Tufts and Knudsen scoured Europe, discovering what the world really thinks of Mormons.

Tufts, who has been involved in LDS films such as "The Singles Ward," "The RM" and "The Home Teacher," wanted something a little different for his next venture.

"I came up with the idea because I'd been involved in LDS film, and we were very interested in doing something that hadn't been done before," he said. "We noticed a pattern in LDS movies where they poked fun at themselves or explored our religion or our culture from an insider's point of view. We wanted to make the first movie that explored our religion and our culture from an outsider's view."

From the hilarious to the touching, Tufts and Knudsen left no European stone unturned, pulling strangers off the streets to ask them what they knew of Utah, the church and LDS culture. The answers ranged from recalling "Utah" from an episode of "Friends," to believing that Mormons lived on farms with no electricity or plumbing, to a claim that the man on the Quaker Oats box was a Mormon.

Tufts and Knudsen traveled from Rome to London, covering more than 8,000 miles in 21 days.

"We met people literally from Argentina to Kenya," Knudsen said. "People were very open. Some people were even surprised to hear that Daryn was Mormon because he looked so 'normal.'"

The film explores more than just how outsiders see Mormons. Along with random street interviews, Tufts and Knudsen sought out LDS church members in European areas where the church isn't as established as it is in the United States.

"Some of the most interesting things to me were the things that came from the Mormons themselves," Tufts said. "I would never have believed that the oldest LDS chapel in the world is in England, not in America. I talked to the first Mormon patriarch in Rome. I talked to an LDS family in Berlin who lived in East Berlin when the wall came down and got to talk about how that affected their family and the church. It's amazing. These are things that are unlike anything you can find in any other LDS movie."

The film was released Tuesday and is available at the BYU Bookstore as well as LDS bookstores nationwide.

Copyright Brigham Young University 27 Sep 2006