There were two films I saw in 2005 that made a huge impression on me. First was Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan’s re-imagining of the Batman story. That movie was a riveting popcorn movie, full of rollercoaster action and a keen intelligence rarely seen in Hollywood genre fare.

The second was DiG!, a rock ‘n roll documentary on the friendship established and then ripped apart between two unremarkable indie bands, The Dandy Warhols (sneezing out hits) and The Brian Jonestown Massacre (they ARE the record company). DiG! was hilarious, tragic, poignant and at times shocking - seriously, just go and buy it.

That film’s director, Ondi Timoner, is back with another feature length doc titled Join Us. This time she’s making a drastic u-turn by focusing on a Christian cult in South Carolina run by German pastor Raimund Melz.

The doc’s official website is pretty sparse but it does have a trailer and a synopsis, part of which is here:

Join Us follows four families as they leave a controlling and abusive church in South Carolina and come to realise they have been members of a cult. The film documents them intimately as they enter the only accredited live-in cult treatment facility in the world. At Wellspring they learn how they were brainwashed to give up control of their lives to the Pastor and his wife, allowing their children to undergo severe abuse to make heaven.

Though this doesn’t have the immediate appeal of DiG!, it is definitely exploring an interesting topic - fingers crossed this gets a decent release.

I wonder how long it’ll be before somebody makes a doc on the S-word that breaks through to the masses?

source - join us