Witnesses Director Promotes Film

[kairos]

I have been out of the loop for a while so today i surfed to the ldsfilmfest website to see if the W film was still on for this Wednesday. Yes and it shows a runtime of 110 minutes. The film festival schedule shows Wednesday eve showing and then on Saturday the director Mark Goodman holds forth in a film director's session at 4pm.
What made my day was a link to a 2/21 audio interview of Goodman on FM100.3 which i listened to for about 10 of the 20 minutes and had to throw up after that time. Goodman is definitely a TBM, saying in Sunday school one member could only name 2 of the 3 witnesses so Goodman got the itch to do a film on the subject. He said he forwarded the script to some scholars, one of whom questioned why he did not do a documentary instead of a dramatic feature film-Goodman said his film was historically accurate and that drama would sell more tickets. What was unexpected and it is not clear to me but Goodman said he was including some drama/truth around the Kirkland Anti-bank fiasco and some drama around the Kirkland temple- it will be interesting if he is doing this as filler or weaving the story to show some of the witnesses left the church for one reason or another. One of the actors may be on the audio cast but i did not get that far.

https://fm100.com/podcasts/2021-02-21-r ... n-hoppe-8/

Above is the link as best i could capture it if anyone wants to listen to how great this film is in the eyes of the director and the radio interviewer- and perhaps listen for the full 20 minutes without getting sick.

just postin
k

[Moksha]

The 20th Annual LDS Film Festival, screening documentaries, full-length movies, short flicks and music videos, will run through Saturday at Orem’s SCERA Center for the Arts — with COVID-19 safety guidelines in force.

Feature attractions include “Witnesses,” directed by Mark Goodman, which tells the story of the foundational Latter-day Saints who swore to the coming forth of the church’s signature scripture, the Book of Mormon.

For the schedule and full lineup, click here.

Plus, X-Files’ star David Duchovny delves into the world of Mormonism.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/lates ... plocalnews

[Doctor Scratch]

You know, Moksha--I saw that. How is it that this silly novel by Duchovny has managed to seize the limelight away from the Mopologists? All I've heard since the movie premiered are chirping crickets. It's almost as if nobody bothered to see it at all, or that it didn't make much of an impression on any of the people who *did* see it. Then again, maybe they're still reeling in fear after what was apparently a "prodromic" milieu:

Our distributor, Brandon Purdie, announced after the film that the date of the theatrical premiere has been set: It will be Friday, 4 June 2021. In the crowding and chaos that ensued — masked, but still a little bit too close for my taste in these times of pandemic — I wasn’t able to catch Brandon to find out exactly how wide that theatrical premiere will be, but I expect that more details will be available in fairly short order.

Indeed, an image on the movie's Facebook page shows a rather disquietingly crowded theater, with people milling about irresponsibly. Then there was also this off-hand remark:

I hope that people (certainly along the Wasatch Front, but also perhaps beyond) will mark that date. Apparently, ticket receipts for the opening weekend of a new movie are extremely important in forming theater-owners’ plans for the future allocation of screens, so it’s vital that Witnesses have a good theatrical opening.

How much did they invest in this again?

[Moksha]

How will the next Joseph Smith movie find as handsome of actor? Will the LDS film crew need to apply some sort of phosphorescent gold spray to match its created legend? We will have to wait and see.