Please Support This New Movie - Paradise Recovered

There's an indie film coming out called Paradise Recovered.  It's a film about an ex-cult member who leaves her cult and learns to love life. 

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

The trailer is available on YouTube.  It's a very well-made film; the filmmakers took a lot of care and attention to its quality and story.  Paradise Recovered is the kind of once-in-a-lifetime accomplishment all filmmakers hope to achieve.

From the filmmaker's website  www.paradiserecovered.com :

Synopsis:

Esther Harris, a virtuous young woman and devotee of Warren F. Vanderbilt , is given the opportunity of a lifetime – to marry a minister’s son and attend Vanderbilt’s Kingdom Bible College.

When her fundamentalist Christian group falls on hard times, Esther looks for employment at a local health food store to supplement the group’s income.

At the store, Esther gets a chance to share her faith with her new manager, Gabriel, a Philosophy student and devout skeptic, and learns what it really means to experience faith, love, and life.

Fun Facts about Paradise Recovered:

We put the 'ultra' in 'ultra-low budget', relying on a lot of in-kind support, goodwill, donated items, and stuff from our houses as props.

The camera used was the Holy Grail of Ultra Low-Budget Filmmaking: The RED One.  At the beginning of the shoot in Austin, the temperature topped out at 110 degrees. The RED took the heat.

Most films boast that no animals were harmed during their shoot. We boast that one kitten was saved during the making of Paradise Recovered, thanks to the generosity and heroism of David Blue Garcia and Julio Quintana.

The profits of Paradise Recovered will help provide mental health services for survivors of religious abuse, as well as assist our team of aspiring filmmakers, musicians, actors, and artists in doing what they do. They make art. Making art takes money. Spreading the wealth around to all who shared in making it is the right thing to do. 

The filmmakers are pledging at least 10% of the profits to Wellspring Retreat, a residential treatment center for recovering cult members.  That is a great thing.  Their hope is to provide access to treatment to all recovering cult members no matter their ability to pay.

============================================

We have all seen how cult leaders engage in shameless exploitation for personal gain.  It's nice to see someone really working towards making lives better.

Take a look at their website.  There is an open letter to ex-cult members.  When they are finished with the final cut of the film (which is a long process) they will put together a list of recovery sources and have it available.  That alone is enough to support.

When Paradise Recovered is released, I hope you will support this film by attending a screening, buying a DVD or telling people you know about it.

The trailer is absolutely beautiful.  The photography, the music and direction shows a remarkable sense of appreciation and awareness of the beauty of everyday life and the world around us.  So often, destructive cultic organizations replace our natural sense of wonder with fear, suspicion, distrust and disdain for those who don't adopt the cult doctrine.  

Paradise Recovered shows so very well how one person can release that unnatural state to return to embrace the world around her and regain the life she was truly meant to live.

And ironically, it's Paradise Recovered that truly shows how Freedom is the Essence of Life.

The Paradise Recovered web site

Paradise Recovered on Facebook

Paradise Recovered on Twitter