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Audience of One (2009)
Release Date:
Tuesday, April 21, 2009

MPAA Rating:
NR

Genre:
Documentary

Starring:
Richard Gazowsky,

Director:
Mike Jacobs

Official Site:
Audience of One (2009)

Synopsis:

Ten years ago, a pastor from the Voice of Pentecost Church in San Francisco received a prophetic whisper - a directive from God to make movies for the Lord. Using donations from his congregation, he slowly transformed his church into a fully functioning movie studio, and the production company Christian WYSIWYG Filmworks was born. After experimenting on several small projects, Pastor Richard Gazowsky announced he and his WYSIWYG crew were going to make a film entitled, "Gravity: The Shadow of Joseph", a $50 million biblical science fiction movie that would redefine the Hollywood epic.

AUDIENCE OF ONE is a documentary that chronicles the making of "Gravity". This verite-style film goes inside a Pentecostal church, where the charismatic Gazowsky leads his loyal cast and crew on an incredible journey that tests the limits of faith. From pre-production at their church, to shooting principal photography in Italy, to leasing an enormous studio on an island in the San Francisco Bay, AUDIENCE OF ONE keeps pace with an embattled church production looking to God in order to keep their dream alive. Full of humor and pathos, what transpires is a story of obsession, faith and delusion.

Audience of One begins its limited release Friday March 27 in San Francisco and will continue its release as follows:
  • San Francisco: March 27th - April 3rd
  • Austin, Texas: March 30 - April 1st
  • Akron, Ohio: April 3rd
  • Chicago: May 1st - May 7th
  • New York, NY: May 8th - May 14th
  • Jacksonville, FL: May 16th
  • Seattle: June 26th - June 28th

Audience of One (2009) | Preview

An Inside Outsider
Elisabeth Leitch

Content Image
HJ: You mentioned earlier, that one of the reasons you felt like Richard initially invited you in to do this was his hope or belief that you would join his church or subscribe to his religion. What was that like for you? And was that something that you felt all the way through?

MJ: Oh yeah. I mean my last shoot there, at the church, one of the members said, "Why don't you put that camera down and you'll discover the real reason why you keep coming back here." Little things like that, they would say all the time. Rocky would say, "I'm going to pray for your soul tonight. I just want you to know that." And I would say, "Thank you." Richard's niece&ellips; she's one of my favorites 'cause she would always rail on me about this. She was raised very Catholic, so now she's sort of converted to this new kind of Pentecostal religion, and she knows the process of going from one to the other. So she would say to me, "One of these days you'll see the light." It was always in a very warm way though. I never felt threatened. I never felt like they were trying to say, you know, "You're going to go to hell." Never once did they say anything along those lines. But they would say things like, "The only way to salvation is through your submission to Jesus Christ." And I'd say, "I appreciate your opinion. Not gonna work today, but I'll be back tomorrow to film more." I always tried to draw the line, you know; I'm here to make this film. But when the cameras are off, we would have plenty of really interesting theological discussions. And there are plenty of rabbis Richard is friends with, and he goes to Jerusalem. He's a man of faith&ellips; I mean my film is clearly like, "I'm this Pentecostal minister and we're making this movie," but Richard is a far more dynamic minister than that. He has relationships all over the spectrum&ellips;

HJ: You mention having these off-camera theological discussions. Are there any specific conversations that stand out and you still remember?

MJ: Not anything that I can specifically remember right now, but there were plenty of conversations where they would ask me like what it was like to grow up Jewish, and I would explain something. We would talk more about the things that we had in common, the things that were a celebration about the human experience, and ultimately how it's about being a good person and what that means and really just like a set of values; that's where we always found common ground. And I would always tell them, this is where it goes too far for me: when you guys start talking about miracles and needing answers and looking for signs and communicating with God. That's too far for me. I don't judge you for thinking that way, but I can't go there. It just doesn't work. Like, if I shut my eyes and pray with you guys right now, I don't feel it. They would all the time come up and pray for me, all the time. They would lay their hands on me and pray for me, pray for the documentary. And I was always uncomfortably respectful of it and gave them that space in order to say what they needed to say, 'cause I don't want to take that away from them, but it was not anything I subscribed to.

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