We had a respectable though not huge audience for our panel discussion earlier this evening at the 19th Annual LDS Film Festival, and I think it went well. We led off with the video “sampler” that now appears on our Witness film project website, which is made up of mingled footage from our theatrical movie (still temporarily supplemented with some material from an earlier film that was created by our same team) and from the documentary film that will accompany it. We also showed a quite dramatic film clip depicting the time when Martin Harris confesses to Joseph and other members of the Smith family that he has lost the manuscript of the Book of Mormon that had been entrusted to his care.
Mark Goodman (our director) and Russell Richins (our producer) and I were joined on the panel by the actor who plays Joseph Smith in Witnesses, Paul Wuthrich. And I have to say that he was remarkable. I hope that he can serve more than once as a spokesman or discussant on our behalf. Some folks were heard to say back in the midst of the intense filming that he was awfully young. In fact, he’s precisely the age that Joseph Smith was during most of the story that we tell in Witnesses. So, if his youth shocks some in the audience, they should be shocked, because Joseph was young when he dictated the Book of Mormon.
Our newly-contracted distributor, Brandon Purdie, also took a couple of audience questions during the panel, and I’m really excited to see what we can do together.
The immediately next film that Brandon has coming out, by the way, is Heart of Africa, which I’m eager to see. Directed by Tshoper Kbambi, a Congolese Latter-day Saint filmmaker — the very thought of a Congolese Latter-day Saint filmmaker thrills me! — I hope that it achieves a good audience reception. It opens on 13 March 2020, just two weeks from now, so please keep your eyes open for it:
Our panel discussion marks, in a way, the debut of our publicity campaign for Witnesses. Starting now, but picking up pace through the summer and into the fall, you’ll be seeing more and more of and about our effort, although — alas! — we’ll have nothing approaching the advertising budget or the sheer power to irritate of, say, Michael Bloomberg. (Our first priorities will be the creation of an official movie trailer and the creation of an official theatrical poster.)
Accordingly, afterwards, my wife and I went out for dinner with friends at TruReligion Pancake and Steakhouse in Orem. I don’t know what the others were thinking about but, to me, it was something of a celebration.
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