Acceptance is the Beginning - Crowdfunding Campaign for a Powerful Faith-Based Film

 

Stephen L. Satterfield is a true movie industry veteran, with over 30 films under his belt. He began his career back in 2017 and has worked as a producer, writer, and actor since then. Back in 2022, he wrote a script called Acceptance is the Beginning, and now, with the help of an Indiegogo campaign, he is working to turn it into a reality. Here's how Stephen describes his upcoming project:

Acceptance is the Beginning is truly about sharing the message and promises of Christianity. I do warn that the film has an unapologetically evangelical perspective, and I ask all to consider that when donating as I respect free will, too. The main character is depressed and without faith and hope. The main character also has an opportunity to unwittingly share his problems and his grief with an angel and demon.

The premise of the film looks really interesting and engaging, especially from the perspective of the Christian faith. At the same time, Stephen aims to produce his work where he also resides. That means that the film should be shot in the coming summer at a location in the US, more precisely in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Here's where the crowdfunding campaign comes in. Stephen is raising the first target of a very modest $500 in a flexible Indiegogo campaign and it is presently at 59 percent, with 28 days to go. If you'd like to see Acceptance is the Beginning see the light of a day as a finished project, consider helping Stephen either by donating directly on the film's Indiegogo page or by spreading the word about the campaign on social media!

Film Review: I Saw the TV Glow (2024)

As someone born in the 1980s, I too, just like I Saw the TV Glow, can attest to the power of great television. In my case, the shows of choice during my childhood include a narrow band of science fiction, mainly seen in The X-Files, Star Trek: Deep Space 9, and Star Trek: Voyager. In these shows, as a kid, I found almost total immersion, where I truly got lost in each episode into a very believable world that is so much unlike my own reality.

I Saw the TV Glow focuses on that mental and emotional space for its two main characters, Owen and Maddy. Both of them are growing up in the US suburbs and finding life incredibly challenging as teens in 1996. However, what also binds them together is The Pink Opaque, a fictional TV show that features two characters with a psychic connection who are fighting an ever-present, but subtle evil force seen in the form of Mr. Melancholy.

The film was written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun, who clearly also understands the power and horror of finding escape from both the real world and the physical bodies that inhabit it. The experience of watching I Saw the TV Glow is thus very odd, as it mixes tones of teen bonding and finding solace in each other's company, with a sharp sense of dread and despair, even utter horror. The latter come from the lifestyles that are to a point forced on the main characters, as well as their controlled and asserted perceptions of themselves.

Here, in this space filled with so many feelings, the fantastic musical soundtrack only enhances this unique experience of belonging and very much sticking out. Both main characters, played by Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine, do a great job in trying to communicate this sense of split self to each other and the audience, which is so hard to explain with words. That is why both of them, just like the film in its entirety, succeeds brilliantly in showing just a glimpse - but still a powerful one - of lives where people never belong, yet yearn so much to do nothing more than fit in somewhere.

Film Review: Immaculate (2024 film)

The traditional Roman Catholic iconography easily offers itself up to a range of horror genres and Immaculate is another fine example of that dark merger. In this case, the focus is on an approach that is best described as body horror, even though the film blends several other atypical elements into the mix, including faint echoes of Giallo filmmaking.

The plot of the film follows Sister Mary, a US nun who arrives in a remote Italian Catholic convent. At first, Mary, who is played by Sydney Sweeney, is greeted by a community of different characters, where her future fitting in could be a long and arduous process. However, soon after it is discovered that Mary is with child, even though her chastity remains intact.

Directed by Michael Mohan, Immaculate focuses on the idea of being entrapped by one's surroundings, by one's body, and by one's deepest faith. Here, Sweeney's interpretation of Mary is very striking, as she provides a very downtrodden and humble character, who still harbors a strong will to fight and overcome horrible situations. As the film progresses, these situations only grow in scale and frequency.

Ritualistic and visceral, Immaculate is a strong body horror that touches upon some very real issues of female reproductive rights and the ideation that this carries with it among the faithful. Unlike other horrors rooted in rituals, like Midsommar, the film does not get entangled in its religious source material but remains focused on its crucial entity - the character of Mary and her terrible experiences.