“Witnesses” News

I’m pleased to report that the Interpreter Foundation’s Witnesses theatrical film won first prize on Saturday night in the Feature Film category at the twentieth annual LDS Film Festival.  That is a well-deserved honor for Mark Goodman, Russell Richins, and James Jordan, the principal movie makers behind the project.

Again, I want to stress that Witnesses will have its national debut on Friday, 4 June 2021.  I hope that you will note that date, or Saturday the fifth, on your calendar, and that you will make it a point to attend a showing that weekend if it’s at all feasible for you and in your area.  Bring family, friends, even church groups.  The opening weekend of a movie has become a very important indicator of how that movie will do overall and, thus, has also become a significant data point that theater chains and theater owners take into consideration in order to decide how to allocate their screens:

“Why is a movie’s first week box office so important?”

It’s not that we’re obsessed with money.  Whether Witnesses becomes the new Avatar or completely tanks at the box office, I will earn precisely the same amount from it: $0.00.  We have no investors whom we need to satisfy.  Our budget has come entirely from donors, who don’t expect their donations back, let alone to earn a healthy profit.  Moreover, our plan is to take any revenues that accrue to Witnesses and to put them into at least one as yet unannounced future movie project.

But we do care deeply about reaching as large an audience as possible.  And those who want to help us with that can easily do so.

• If you haven’t already gone to the Witnesses website, please do so now, before you forget.   At a minimum, click on the button at the top of the screen that’s marked “BRING WITNESSES TO YOUR CITY THIS SUMMER” and fill in the very brief form there.  Do it!  Now!  Consider also whether you might be in a position to “BUY A PRIVATE SCREENING: FAMILIES, CHURCH, COMMUNITY,” as the button at the top right invites you to do.  And if you’re in such very select company, look at the button to the top left:  “OWN A THEATER? BOOK WITNESSES HERE.”
• Mark Friday, 4 June 2021, and Saturday, 5 June 2021, on your calendar.  Plan to attend on one of those dates, if you can.  And share the news of those dates with others, whether in person or via social media or in any other way that you prefer.  The importance of this cannot be overstated.

Those who are interested and on Facebook can follow the “Witnesses Film” there and learn about ongoing developments as they occur and are announced.

P.S.  One of my obsessive anonymous critics is claiming online that Witnesses won at the LDS Film Festival because of favoritism.  The Festival’s director, Kels Goodman (who actually announced on Saturday night that he is stepping down from that position), is supposedly a brother of Mark Goodman, who is the director of Witnesses.  But Kels Goodman and Mark Goodman are not brothers.  Nor, so far as I’m aware, are they significantly related at all.