Paradise Recovered
October 27th (Women’s/Gender Films)
CAMPUS BUILDING: COG (Charles Oliver Gray) Room 213
LOCATION: Tusculum College Greeneville, TN
FILM DESCRIPTION
Esther Harris, a young woman praised for her virtue and devotion to Warren F. Vanderbilt’s Prophetic Watchman Ministries, has been given the opportunity of a lifetime – to attend Vanderbilt’s Kingdom Bible College and to marry Phillip Sawyer, the son of a minister and a Kingdom student being groomed for the ministry.
When the fundamentalist Christian sect 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 devout skeptic and preacher’s kid, and his roommate, Mark, a college drop-out who finds Christian television to be great entertainment.
When Phillip’s father, David, excommunicates Esther for committing a terrible sin, Gabriel’s constant challenges and Mark’s playfulness open Esther’s mind to new experiences and new questions. The friendship with Gabriel and Mark help Esther determine her human worth while helping her reframe her faith in a whole new light.
Shot entirely on location in Southern Indiana and Austin, Texas, Paradise Recovered attempts a modern-day retelling of the parable of the Good Samaritan while addressing hard questions involving faith, tolerance, and spiritual abuse in modern culture. 95min
