05/18/2020
From director Kristine Stolakis: "Sometimes when you're making a documentary, you film a moment so special that on a cellular level you know, almost instantaneously, that what you've captured will undeniably make its way into your final film.
This might not seem significant, but most documentaries gather over a hundred hours of footage, if not more, that we then painstakingly edit down to ninety minutes of content. Having this confidence that you've captured one minute of those ninety *in the very moment you are documenting it* is rare, and it's incredibly special.
This was the exact experience I had sitting in the interview chair across from Julie Rodgers as she described the nuts and bolts of her experience in a conversion therapy program for my debut feature documentary PRAY AWAY. Her honesty and nuance, her bravery in sharing intimate and painful details about a program that continues to this day to counsel youth, was undeniably powerful. Our exceptional cinematographer Melissa Langer and I couldn't help but hold our breath. This was the inside look at the "pray the gay away" movement we'd been working to film for years. If we feel this impacted now in Julie's living room, I thought, what will it feel like when the world gets to hear her story?
There was a moment like this with every person we filmed with for PRAY AWAY. These moments make PRAY AWAY what it is.
I hope you are just as moved by our film's sneak peek as I was when I first sat down with Julie. We can't wait to share the full film with you soon."
In the 1970s, five men struggling with being gay in their Evangelical church started a bible study to help each other leave the "homosexual lifestyle." They quickly received over 25,000 letters from people asking for help and formalized as Exodus International, the largest and most controversial conversion therapy organization in the world.
Julie Rodgers is one of hundreds of thousands of people caught in Exodus’ wake. When she came out at sixteen, her mom took her to a residential conversion therapy program where she spent the next decade going through weekly psychological, behavioral, and religious counseling to make her straight.
But leaders struggled with a secret: their own “same-sex attractions” never went away. After years as Christian superstars in the religious right, many have come out as LGBTQ, disavowing the very movement they helped start. PRAY AWAY chronicles that movement’s rise to power, persistent influence, and the harm it causes.
Lamplighter Films is an independent production company whose critically-acclaimed films shine a light on extraordinary stories on the issues of our times.
