FAITH-BASED FILMMAKING

As Paul Devlin’s article on his film BLAST! in the current issue of Filmmaker notes, films that touch on issues of faith and religion can be tricky sells in the independent film world — even as filmmakers like the Kendrick Brothers work outside of the independent community and find success with their explicitly faith-based films.

Here’s a feature narrative on Kickstarter that caught my eye that explores issues of belief and non-belief. From the page on Faith, by Eli Daughdrill:

The film is a personal, independent narrative that takes a sensitive but critical look at at religion in America. FAITH follows two different people and the evolution of their belief in god after personal tragedy befalls them both.

Chris is a devout, fundamentalist Christian whose son is bi-polar. When prayer doesn’t work, and his son commits suicide, Chris’s worldview is thrown into disarray.

Betty is a teacher at the local community college who grew up in the church. With a father who was both Pastor and philanderer, Betty dismissed religion as hypocrisy and simplistic fable. But she just found a lump in her breast. As she faces her own mortality, the attraction to some kind of higher power might be too strong to ignore.

FAITH juxtaposes two narratives to uncover the ways we are pulled towards – and away from – God. The film exposes the hypocrisy and arrogance of fundamentalist Christianity while exploring the need to call on a higher power during times of crisis.

The film will be shot in and around California’s Central Valley, which forms the setting and ideological backdrop of the story. Eli Daughdrill, the film’s writer/director, grew up on an Almond ranch in the valley and knows the people and place very well. The characters in the story are fictional but certainly feel like real residents of the valley.