My Scientology Movie (2015)

My Scientology Movie (2015)

Month: November 2015


Official Selection London Film Festival 2015

Director: John Dower

Producers: Simon Chinn, Joe Oppenheimer, Charlotte Moore

BBC Films, Red Box Films

Best Film, NME Awards 2016

Reviews

All sorts of weird stuff starts happening as Theroux reiterates the sheer nastiness of the organisation in his provocative documentary

The Church of Scientology is a deeply strange organisation and, appropriately enough, Louis Theroux has made a strange film about it. It works as a companion piece to another documentary, the one that I think is the definitive takedown: Alex Gibney’s Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, from 2015. It’s an interesting, if flawed piece of work; Theroux’s opaque manner masks an uncertainty as to exactly what he wants to say, and he finally seems to turn on his own chief witness.

Theroux’s Scientology movie is undoubtedly a smart piece of what could be called improv-ocation. He shows up in LA, advertising his intention to film a series of scripted and unscripted scenes recreating key moments from the life of the Scientologists’ sinister chief, David Miscavige. (Theroux may here have been inspired by Josh Oppenheimer’s modern-classic documentary about the Indonesian tyranny, The Act of Killing.) He will audition actors, film the audition process, and use as his adviser a famous apostate and whistleblower, former Scientologist enforcer Marty Rathbun – a man now hated in the church for his betrayal.

The Guardian


Being AP (2015)

Month: November 2015


Official Selection Toronto Film Festival

Director: Anthony Wonke

Producers: Nick Ryle, John Woolcombe

BBC Films, Irish Film Board

Feature documentary

Reviews

Being AP review – tracking the jump jockey's final furlong

Antony Wonke’s documentary about record-breaking rider AP McCoy offers valuable insights into what motivates a sports hero

The Guardian