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Films about fundamentalism


brokenminded

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I am wondering what films are out there on the topic, be they documentaries, completely fiction or the based on a true story variety.

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I haven't watched this yet, but there's a film called Stop The Pounding Heart on Netflix that I threw in my queue. It seems to revolve around a girl in a fundie family.

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In the Heat of the Night TV series did a TV movie at the end of their 7th season with a story that was based on the Branch Davidian standoff in Waco - a cult had moved in to an old school.  After a teenager had ran away the police started investigating child abuse within the cult.  The situation eventually deteriorated into a standoff and ended with the cult leader and some of his followers taking their own lives.

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American Experience: Amish and Amish, Shunned are good.  Jesus Camp, Hell House, Give Me Sex Jesus....

I'll think of more. 

I found Jesus Camp awkward and distrubing to watch. I haven't seen the other documentaries listed. Those poor campers being psychologically abused and exploited right on film. 

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I found Jesus Camp awkward and distrubing to watch. I haven't seen the other documentaries listed. Those poor campers being psychologically abused and exploited right on film. 

I was raised in SW Missouri so I went to school with a lot of this type of fundie.  It's depressing but real.

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A satirical movie to watch is Saved! 

Oh man! I forgot about Saved! I need to rewatch that one now that I've read about so many different fundies. 

Also, all the Kirk Cameron Left Behind movies are on Netflix, as well as the newer Nicholas Cage version. There are also a couple of Kirk's documentaries, but I tried watching those and couldn't even watch them snarkily. 

Give me Sex Jesus is awesome and on Vimeo. The Virgin Daughters is also quite fascinating (and last I checked, on Youtube)

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Different kind of fundie, but Going Clear, Scientology and the Prison of Belief is on Netflix here in the Netherlands. But I'm sure you can watch it somewhere on the web.

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I know the People's Temple don't qualify as fundies, but I recently watched a movie called "The Sacrament" based on Jonestown, and it was decently entertaining. Documentary Film Crew goes in to a secluded cult documenting someone trying to get their sister out of it. It's pretty gory at the end though, obviously.

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Check out A Courtship which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Here is the synopsis and a link to pre-order it on iTunes. Available nationwide on Nov 17th on VOD

Kelly is saving herself for marriage and following Christian Courtship, an alternative to dating where parents, in conjunction with God, search for their daughters' husbands. Kelly's own parents think courtship is crazy, so she enlists "spiritual parents" to find her husband. 

iTunes http://apple.co/1Lwqr9d

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Higher Ground (with/directed by Vera Farmiga) is an accurate and gut-wrenching account of a woman who fell into fundamentalism and managed to climb back out.

 

I'm pretty familiar with horror/thriller movies that deal with religious fundamentalism, too, if that's your thing.

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Higher Ground (with/directed by Vera Farmiga) is an accurate and gut-wrenching account of a woman who fell into fundamentalism and managed to climb back out.

 

I'm pretty familiar with horror/thriller movies that deal with religious fundamentalism, too, if that's your thing.

this looks interesting, I'm having trouble finding it though.  Is it online anywhere? 

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this looks interesting, I'm having trouble finding it though.  Is it online anywhere? 

It looks like your best option (if you don't have a Netflix DVD subscription) is a $3 streaming rental via amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Higher-Ground-Vera-Farmiga/dp/B006LMF4FC/ref=sr_1_1/ref=sr_1_1?_encoding=UTF8&keywords=higher ground movie&qid=1447183090&s=movies-tv&sr=1-1

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I'm pretty familiar with horror/thriller movies that deal with religious fundamentalism, too, if that's your thing.

Please share.

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Sure! Here's a short list, pre-coffee:

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Silent Hill

The Shrine

The Sacrament

 

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Sure! Here's a short list, pre-coffee:

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Silent Hill

The Shrine

The Sacrament

 

I love both The Shrine and the Sacrament. I have yet to see the other 2 you listed.  

Another to add to your list is The Wickerman. Of course this isn't exactly Fundi but it falls into the extreme religious section.

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An interesting film that fictionalizes the raid on the FLDS controlled town of Short Creek, AZ, now Colorado City, is Child Bride of Short Creek. It upset me when I saw it as a kid, and it still chilled me when I watched it again recently online. It's an older movie (1981), and has some cheese to it, but I do think it's worth watching.  

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Child Bride of Short Creek was actually the gateway to my obsession with fundamentalism. They used to show it quite frequently on the Lifetime Network when I was about middle school aged and it creeped me out/fascinated me so much that I began to read and watch anything I could about fundamentalist groups and cults. Adolescent me would have gone nuts about Free Jinger had it been around in the 90's.

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Since Child Bride of Short Creek has been brought up...

September Dawn - a fictionalization of the Mountain Meadow Massacre in 1857

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_Dawn

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre

(I learned at some point in the last couple of years while doing genealogy that members (not sure exactly who on the tree)  of one branch of my family - from North Central Arkansas) were among those that went to Utah after this incident to retrieve survivors).  

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Child Bride of Short Creek was actually the gateway to my obsession with fundamentalism. They used to show it quite frequently on the Lifetime Network when I was about middle school aged and it creeped me out/fascinated me so much that I began to read and watch anything I could about fundamentalist groups and cults. Adolescent me would have gone nuts about Free Jinger had it been around in the 90's.

I, too, would have loved having access to a site like FJ when I was younger. :pb_smile:

This movie was my first introduction to the FLDS. I comforted myself after I first watched it by telling myself it happened a long time ago. I couldn't fathom that cruelty like that was still happening to, and being perpetrated by, people of today. It took stumbling across the Maxwell family blog many years later to raise my awareness that fundamentalism can happen in any belief system. 

 I think Conrad Bain was fantastic as President King--he really made my skin crawl. Oddly enough, even to this day, I can't eat a plum without this movie coming to mind.

Since Child Bride of Short Creek has been brought up...

September Dawn - a fictionalization of the Mountain Meadow Massacre in 1857

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_Dawn

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre

(I learned at some point in the last couple of years while doing genealogy that members (not sure exactly who on the tree)  of one branch of my family - from North Central Arkansas) were among those that went to Utah after this incident to retrieve survivors).  

That must have been fascinating to learn that piece of information about your family's history! 

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A satirical movie to watch is Saved! 

The school in Saved! was so much like the Christian school I worked in that it scared me. I made my husband watch it to understand. He was baffled by no one noticing the girl was pregnant for all that time. I was not. That could totally happen because the parents and staff at those schools are often so convinced that the kids are so perfect and so bought in to the theology and rules that they are selling that they cannot begin to admit anything like that could happen. No hidden pregnancies, but I have plenty of other examples from that school. 

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