Three Short Films on Eccentric Spirituality

Film evenings begin with potluck refreshments & social hour at 6:30 pm,
followed by the film at 7:30 pm, followed by a discussion after the film.

Three Short Films on ECCENTRIC SPIRITUALITY
by Vice Films


Film I: Cult Leader Thinks He’s Jesus

Deep in Siberia’s Taiga forest is Vissarion, a cult leader who looks like Jesus and claims to be the voice of God. He’s known as “the Teacher” to his 4,000 followers, who initially seem surprisingly normal. Over time, however, their unflinching belief in UFOs and the Earth’s imminent demise made this group start to look more and more like a strange cult indeed.


Film II: Holy Thugs in Venezuela

Venezuela’s criminal culture permeates religious worship. In the dangerous city of Caracas, people are worshiping dead criminals. Do these flawed figureheads offer genuine comfort to troubled communities or is this unusual spiritualism encouraging more violence? Saint Ismael Sanchez is the top saint of the Holy Thugs, a religious cult that combines Catholicism and Spiritualism. “He helped the poor a lot, people say he used to steal but it was only for his neighborhood.” For many around Venezuela, these fallible saints are a realistic answer to the crime and violence that plague their communities. However, 14,000 people were killed in Venezuela last year. Is this a troubling trend which is sanctioning the growing crime rate?


Film III: Suicide Forest in Japan

The Aokigahara Forest is the most popular site for suicides in Japan. After the novel Kuroi Jukai was published, in which a young lover commits suicide in the forest, people started taking their own lives there at a rate of 50 to 100 deaths a year. The site holds so many bodies that the Yakuza pays homeless people to sneak into the forest and rob the corpses. The authorities sweep for bodies only on an annual basis, as the forest sits at the base of Mt. Fuji and is too dense to patrol more frequently.

Wheelchair accessible around the corner at 411 28th Street

$5 donations are accepted