Companion Films

In which I lay out a basic  and relatively brief argument regarding the various witnesses, and classes of witnesses, to the Book of Mormon:

“Come Follow Me Week 8 – Doctrine & Covenants 14-17 “Stand as a Witness””

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Well, the Interpreter Foundation’s theatrical film, Witnesses, had its first public screening last night as the opening event of the 20th annual LDS Film Festival.  It was (within COVID-19 guidelines) a sold-out show, and, so far as I could tell, the audience reaction was very, very positive.

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.  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.  I would love to see Witnesses do extremely well on both Friday, 4 June, and Saturday, 5 June.  So, please, if you’re at all inclined to see the movie, or to take a family group or a church group to see it, do give serious thought to planning already to do so on 4-5 June.  (And I hope that somebody will explain to theater owners that Latter-day Saint attendance on Sunday, 6 June, is likely to dip considerably — but that that dip will say nothing about prospects for the film’s ticket sales on other days of the week!)

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Our reservations about such gatherings notwithstanding, my wife and I will probably be attending a screening of Heart of Africa 2: Companions this evening.  I want to be supportive.  I want this film, and this director, and this movie-making team, and LDS film generally, to thrive and to prosper.  Plus, I want to see the movie!  We’ll try to arrive early and find an isolated corner, if we can:

“Another Side to “Heart of Africa”: Sequel Comes to the Big Screen”

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Here’s a nice item and, in its way, an important one, from Darla Isackson, who passed away on 21 August 2019:

“No Problem Has an Eternal Life Span”

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Some of you may find these two articles interesting, and perhaps even useful.  There are, I think, important lessons to be learned from this sort of discussion:

“Plenty of the ‘Nones’ Actually Head Back to Church: Americans who identify as agnostic or “nothing in particular” are four times more likely to change their religious affiliation than Protestants or Catholics.”

“Most ‘Nones’ Still Keep the Faith: When research looks beyond affiliation, the move away from religious institutions becomes more nuanced.”