Free in Deed

DIRECTOR: Jake Mahaffy COUNTRIES: USA, New Zealand YEAR: 2015 LANGUAGE(S): English SUBTITLES: German RUNNING TIME: 95 min

SECTION: International Forum 2017

SCREENINGS
Saturday, 30.09., 11.00 a.m., kinoeins
Tuesday, 03.10., 3.00 p.m., kommkino

SYNOPSIS

Set in the distinctive world of storefront churches, and based on actual events, FREE IN DEED depicts one man’s attempts to perform a miracle. When a single mother brings her young boy to church for healing, this lonely Pentecostal minister is forced to confront the seemingly incurable illness of the child and his own demons as well. The more he prays, the more things seem to spiral out of his control. Jake Mahaffy won the Orizzonti award for best direction at Venice in 2015 for his fantastically acted and carefully composed
feature film based on a true story. The film’s centers on the question of how an adult can inflict terrible violence on a child, while all the while thinking he or she is doing good. What makes this indie film so powerful is that it was able to anchor its characters in their social reality and make all their actions psychologically understandable to the viewer. Even if the film is about exorcism, it demonizes nobody. It portrays the fatal mix of poverty, social exclusion, religion and hopelessness faced by large swathes of the
African-American community in the US. “Brilliant. A unique testament to the danger of believing in miracles and to the cruelty of a world that might make such belief necessary” (Indiewire)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIJnunL6iwo

JAKE MAHAFFY

Jake Mahaffy is a teacher currently working at the University of Auckland, NZ.His films Wellness, Miracle Boy, and War have been screened in international festivals such as Sundance, Venice, and SXSW (Grand Jury Prize). Mahaffy grew up in the US midwest and studied visual art and film at the Rhode Island School of Design and at the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as he attended the directing course at the Russian State Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. He founded two film making programs at two universities in the US as an Associate Professor before immigrating to New Zealand. He has been awarded fellowships from foundations and institutes such as Guggenheim, Tribeca, Sundance, Creative Capital and others, mainly for the completion of his film Free in Deed.

FILMOGRAPHY
War (2004), Wellness (2008), Miracle Boy (2012), Free in Deed (2015)

SCRIPT: Jake Mahaffy PRODUCERS: Mike Bowes, Mike S. Ryan, Brent Stiefel CAMERA: Ava Berkofsky EDITOR: Jake Mahaffy MUSIC: Tim Oxton CAST: Edwina Findley (Melva), David Harewood (Abe)

PRODUCTION: Greyshack Films WORLD SALES: Lison Hervé, Stray Dogs

WEBSITE
https://www.freeindeedfilm.com/