Deprogrammed Hot Docs 2015 Press Breaks Prepared by GAT PR
We Spoke to the Director of Deprogrammed about Satanic Panic and Brainwashing Cults By: Regan Reid
http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/we-‐spoke-‐to-‐the-‐director-‐of-‐deprogrammed-‐about-‐satanic-‐panic-‐and-‐ brainwashing-‐cults-‐666
Mia Donovan's stepbrother, Matthew, was deprogrammed at the age of 14. It was the early 1990s, Satanic Panic had spread across North America, and Matthew's father was worried that his son was involved in satanism. So he hired famed deprogrammer Ted Patrick to reverse-‐brainwash Matthew—to free his mind from the grip of an alleged cult. This is how Donovan's excellent documentary Deprogrammed begins. The film explains how the rise of alternative religious groups in the 1970s led panicked parents to seek the help of deprogrammers like Patrick. Through interviews and impressive archival footage,Deprogrammed discusses Patrick's long career, his questionable tactics, and the difficulty of determining whether a person is or is not exercising free will. VICE spoke with Donovan about her experiences with Patrick, parental paranoia, and how to tell if someone's in a cult. VICE: What was it about your stepbrother's experience that made you decide you had to make a film about deprogramming and Ted Patrick? Mia Donovan: I guess me and Matthew were both about 14 when he was deprogrammed. If you can
imagine, you're 14 and this is going on—I thought my mom and her boyfriend were crazy. It just seemed really surreal. I didn't really understand what was going on. I didn't know if [Matthew] was in a cult or not. He was a heavy metal kid. There were rumours at school that him and his friends were sacrificing cats. The whole thing was just very bizarre. The most bizarre thing was meeting Ted after the deprogramming. I still didn't really understand what this all meant then. But then Ted came home and they wanted to rid the whole house of any Satanic triggers, so he took away a lot of my books and records, but in a really dumb—like in a way that I remember thinking this made it even more ridiculous. They took away my INXS album, because there was a song called, "Devil Inside." Things like that. It just always stuck with me all these years, this whole phenomenon. And then...as I was doing my first film, Inside Lara Roxx, I started to think about it. I hadn't seen my stepbrother Matthew in almost 20 years when I contacted him. I thought maybe it was going to be more of a film about him and the Satanic Panic era and how people were misunderstood. I didn't know if Ted was still alive....I didn't know how I felt about Ted either. Because as a child... I didn't really understand him enough. I thought he was a really bad guy who didn't understand the kids or something. Now I understand him. I've got to know him really well. He's kind of a tragic hero in many ways, because his intentions were good, but he's just very black-‐and-‐white in his thinking.
How did you get Ted to agree to the film? And then, what was it like spending time with him? He's a person who had a pretty negative effect on a member of your family—and some other people as well— but, like you said, he really believes what he did was in everyone's best interest. Matthew's [second] cousin was deprogrammed very successfully by Ted in the mid-‐'70s. [He was in] a Hare Krishna cult...So two of his second-‐cousins ended up working for Ted for about a decade on all these Canadian deprogrammings. So I had that sort of in. That really helped, because [Ted] doesn't remember Matthew. His estimation is that he deprogrammed about 3,500 people, which I think is kind of crazy. I don't know if that's possible, but maybe indirectly, because at the peak of his career he had a lot of people working for him. Anyways, it started off just like, "Okay, I'm going to go and meet Ted in San Diego, I'm not sure what's going to happen." And I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about him. But right away, he's just very gentle. He's also 85 now so he's at a very different stage in his life. I just feel that he was the first person to recognize there was something happening with a lot of these radical groups and to recognize there was a potential danger there, but I don't think he understood how to assess groups later on. Like when my stepfather called him—it's hard for him to really explain all this stuff now, but [in the documentary] he says he always listens to the parent's word. I think that's where things may have made it really hard to assess. Like, Matthew was hanging out with a bunch of high school kids and listening to Slayer, definitely dabbling with drugs and some violent behaviour, but there wasn't really like a charismatic leader in that sense. It
wasn't like a cult in that way. But I think Ted just believed he could help. I think he really thinks he can help. That definitely came across in the film. But in the early days, I think, he did have some success with Bible-‐based groups. Because Ted knows the Bible inside out. The first cases, it was usually [The] Children of God, and he would just expose how these leaders twisted Bible scripture. But then all these different alternative religions appeared, people adopted different lifestyles... Yeah, it's like, how do you asses when a group is actually potentially dangerous or if it's just like something different? Exactly. One of the questions your film asks is who has the right to determine what constitutes personal expression and, like you say in the film, what constitutes undue influence? Do you think there's a good answer to this? No. I mean, I think it's really hard. I think that there [are] situations where you can assess, but I mean, it's really hard to answer. I've been thinking about this since I started [making the film]. It's the type of thing that every time I interview somebody else it just kind of throws me for a loop. It's just a very complicated situation because you never know. I don't think anybody could have foreseen Jonestown happening. Or even The Heaven's Gate, if you studied them, they did seem to be very, very controlled in a very closed environment. But there's still no way to have predicted they would have done that. [39 members Heaven's Gate committed suicide in 1997.] Aaron, who's in the film, whose parents tried to deprogram him three times from the Christ Family, [which was] considered a very dangerous, high-‐controlled cult in the '70s and '80s, but now [the members are] in their 60s and they're all living quite happily together. I think it would be kind of sad to pull them away from that family. I have conversations with them, I can hang out with them, and they believe this man Lightning Amen is the second coming of Jesus. They believe it so much, but it doesn't seem to really harm them. That's the difference, I guess? Like when does this actually harm a person? Because a lot of the times in the film, it seemed as if these parents who were deprogramming their kids were just hysterical that their kids had completely different lifestyles than what they expected them to have. That seemed common in the '70s. These parents grew up in a totally different time, and now their kids are out like meditating all the time. Yeah. And being vegetarian. There was this moral panic. And then because of Manson and I think Jonestown, this fed into this paranoia, because deprogramming became very popular right after Jonestown. Parents were just like, "Oh my god, we have to save [our kids]." In some cases people say that [deprogramming] really was helpful. Like Steve Capellini in the documentary, he's so thankful that his parents hired Ted. Ted's methods were pretty controversial though. He kidnapped people, held them against their will and then harassed them with questions for sometimes months at a time. One of the things the film shows is that some people were so worn down by the process that they just acquiesced, said whatever they needed to say to make it end. It made me wonder, does this guy have any clue what he's doing? Or is he just persistent? I think there are so many approaches... I just think that it worked some times so he kept doing it. And when it didn't work, it didn't work, but he didn't necessarily adapt. But other people after him adapted. A lot of people he deprogrammed out of different groups became deprogrammers themselves and really refined it and changed the method a lot. So Ted is not—I mean, he is sort of like the extreme version of deprogramming, the sensational version.
It's really hard because there are no real statistics and I can only go by the people I met. I think a lot of people did—like my stepbrother and Kathleen Crampton—a lot of people did just talk their way out of [deprogramming] and then [went] back to the cults. But back then, Ted and his secretary didn't keep records, they didn't follow up with people. So a lot of people, maybe left for a few months to make their parents happy or whatever and then who knows? I've heard of other stories where people wanted to leave and the deprogramming was just a really good way for them to get out. It's so complicated. The film kind of, I feel like I just scratched the surface. It's so complex. Did you ever get a sense of how Ted defines "cult"? Does he have a definition? His definitions are very black and white. To him a cult is just somebody who controls your mind and controls your critical thinking. Someone who destroys your ability to think critically and controls your will. How does Ted distinguish between a cult and what we think of as traditional religions? Ted today, he doesn't explain himself very clearly, but from the archives he always described the difference being personal autonomy and how [cults]...through sleep deprivation and repetition and a form of hypnotism, would interfere with your ability to think critically. Then you become sort of enslaved by it, the will of the leader. We talked about some of the people who didn't think that deprogramming worked. Then on the flip side, there were people who really felt that it did work. That it helped them come to their own conclusions about the alternative religions they were members of. Is it possible to say if deprogramming was actually necessary? Can you say the ends justified the means? That sort of comes back to the other questions. I personally think that most of the people he deprogrammed probably would have left the group on their own eventually. I think it was just part of that era. I've met so many people who had spent a lot of time, months or years, in different communes or groups in the '70s and then eventually left. Without the moral panic I think that some people may have stayed, some people may have left. But like I said, it's so difficult to tell. Steve Capellini told me he really believes he could've still been a [Unification Church member] today if he had not been deprogrammed. Even Cheryl, whose deprogramming, she described [it] as not being perfect, she thinks she would've still been in a cult had her parents not hired Ted. I think the question is... I guess it's like would they be better off? I can just talk about the cases that we see in the film, but both Cheryl and Steve say that they're really happy and they are better off now that they're deprogrammed. Somebody like Aaron who was never successfully deprogrammed, it's hard to say. Would his life be better today had one of those deprogrammings worked? I don't know. He seems very happy. Do you think Ted ever questioned the parents who were hiring him? Like, did he ever think these parents just didn't understand their kids? No. Yeah, I don't think he [did], and I think that's where he sort of discredited himself in this history. Because there are other well-‐known exit counsellors who are around today and who are very well-‐ respected. Rick Ross, who is in the film, said that he declines half of the calls he gets. He'll say, "This is not a cult situation. This is a family issue." Has Ted seen the film? No, he's going to see it on Sunday. How do you think he'll react and are you excited, nervous? I'm really excited. I'm nervous. I don't know how he's going to react. I think he'll be fine because I've told him who I was interviewing. I've always told him. He understands the controversy. But he loves it. He's like "Anybody wants to debate me, they can debate me." He likes the controversy. Deprogrammed screens Sunday April 26 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
Deprogrammed April 27, 2015
http://globalnews.ca/video/1962970/deprogrammed
Deprogrammed Mon, Apr 27: Director Mia Donovan talks about her new movie, “Deprogrammed,” which looks at the cult hysteria of the 70s through the work of Ted Patrick, a self-‐made deprogrammer.
HOT DOCS: DAY 8 – DEPROGRAMMED By: Steve Gow | April 30, 2015 http://www.strictlydocs.com/
Remember all those kids in the ‘80s who were feared Satanists because they listened to heavy metal music? Want to know what happened to them? Some of them were ‘deprogrammed’ by Ted Patrick who led an extremely controversial practice known as ‘reverse brainwashing’ in order to remove those evil fixations. The vast underground movement is all but extinct but filmmaker Mia Donovan explores the contentious topic in the documentary Deprogrammed – screening today at Hot Docs. I sat down with Donovan to discuss how its leading anti-‐cult crusader’s tactics may have done more harm than good. Steve Gow: Tell me how this story came into your life? Mia Donovan: It started in 1991 – my step-‐brother was a heavy metal-‐kid and he went to a youth rehab centre. It kind of started (with) a comment that was probably just teenage rebellion. The counsellors asked him what his higher power was and he said Satan. So his father decided that he was in a Satanic cult and he was brainwashed and that was why he was a delinquent teen. So it was kind of an extreme route to take but Matthew’s second cousins – one of the them was deprogrammed in 1975 and worked for Ted so I think because they already had experience with Ted it just seemed like ‘why not, let’s give it a try’. Gow: When you started out, you must have had some preconceived notions about this. When did you decide to sit down with Ted and get that interview? Donovan: While I was doing Inside Lara Roxx (her award-‐winning first fllm), I started reading as many books on the subject – autobiographies by ex-‐cult members and Ted Patrick’s book. At first, I didn’t know if Ted was alive because there was no sign of him anywhere on the Internet and I knew he was old but I didn’t know if I could get in touch with him. So by the time I met him, the film really changed because I thought it was just going to be a confrontational interview (but) I ended up liking Ted immediately and kind of understanding him a bit differently. Gow: You say you liked him – what was it about him? Donovan: He’s just very gentle, very honest. There’s just something very gentle about him – its hard to explain. He’s also 85 now so he’s changed a lot but I just kind of understood him. He comes from a different generation and I think my preconceptions were that he was doing a lot of it for money but I realized that he really genuinely believed he was helping people and wanted to help. For more information and screening times, visit: www.hotdocs.ca
Inside the Mind of a Cult De-‐Programmer By: Yohann Koshy | April 28, 2015
http://canvas.grolsch.com/film-‐works/mia-‐donovan-‐interview-‐deprogrammed-‐inside-‐the-‐mind-‐of-‐a-‐cult-‐ de-‐programmer
When Mia Donovan was a teenager, the subject of her new documentary – Deprogrammed – entered her home and confiscated her copy of Sonic Youth’s Evol, INXS’s 'The Devil Inside', and all her Stephen King novels. Ted Patrick had just ‘deprogrammed’ Donovan’s stepbrother, Matthew, and deemed it necessary to remove any nefarious cultural influences from their home, lest Matthew rediscover his latent Satanism. Donovan’s bedroom had become a battlefield in America’s culture wars. Ted Patrick is the father of ‘deprogramming’, a defunct procedure designed to normalise the victims of cults and return them to their families. The technique involves kidnapping the subject and interrogating her under duress. It was primarily applied to the thousands of young Americans who abandoned their parents in the early 70s to join evangelical groups like The Moonies, the Hare Krishna’s and The Children of God. Patrick’s supporters consider ‘deprogramming’ a cruel necessity; his detractors (who are more numerous) claim he only reproduced the cults’ psychological violence. This compelling story of an African-‐American who elected himself the chief negotiator between the dominant and minority cultures, who was arrested and sued hundreds of times, and who regrets not one of his actions, makes up Donovan’s Deprogrammed – which had its world premiere at Hot Docs this week. I spoke to Donovan about her research into the New Age cults of the early 70s, the moral authority of parents, and the legacy of Ted Patrick. Hi Mia. Our entry into the film is your stepbrother – who lives in the woods, is covered in tattoos, and for whom every other word is ‘f**king’. Could you talk about your lives together? We were both 14 in 1991 and I thought Matthew was a typical heavy metal kid at high school. But there were rumours that he was sacrificing cats, you know, getting into trouble. His father had sent him, prior to that, to youth rehab for alcohol abuse; he had sent him to juvenile detention, so there were a lot of things that Matthew had
already been through. So when this idea of a Satanic cult or Satanism came up – which was in the air at that time – his father was like, maybe [this deprogramming] is going to fix him. I was too young to really understand what was going on. I remember meeting Ted Patrick after the deprograming had happened and he wanted to remove all potential triggers from the house. So he took away my Sonic Youth record Evol, he took away an INXS record with the song ‘The Devil Inside’, and he took my Stephen King books! So that’s what stuck with me. Then Ted left his book behind, ‘Let Our Children Go’, so I read that a bit later. I didn’t understand how Matthew fit into what I was reading about, since it was about typical 70s cults: living in communes together. Then decades went by. I hadn’t seen Matthew in about 15 years and, in 2011, when I finished my first film, I found him on Facebook and I was like, “I’m thinking of doing a film about this”.
Could you talk about this early 90s furore over Satanism in the American mainstream? Starting in the mid-‐80s there was one big case with this teenager from a suburb in New York called Ricky Kasso. He murdered a fellow high school student on acid and it was, apparently, part of a satanic ritual. Witnesses said that, as he was stabbing the guy, he was saying, “Say you love Satan!”. They called him the ‘Acid King’ and Rolling Stone did a cover on it. Then there was that Judas Priest lawsuit about subliminal messages, then Ozzy Osbourne was sued as well. Then there’s the West Memphis Three: the three teenage boys who were convicted of murdering three little boys. There was a lot of stuff going on at that time. What was meeting Ted Patrick for the second time, all those years later, like? I got in contact with him and expected to do a brief interview with him. I assumed he’d be a really grumpy, intimidating and not very open. I thought I’d have problems with him because he seemed like this really harsh authority figure at that time. But as soon as I met him he seemed so warm and personable and open. During the process did he raise about moral doubts about his methods? No. I thought he would but he’s very set in his ways. Maybe that’s his generation for whom the world is very black and white. We see videotapes of Patrick’s deprogramming sessions and the interrogation is almost comically simple. He’s not qualified and, as he says, only “has a PhD in common sense”. Did he talk about how he developed this methods? I think it came very organically to him through his son. He’s never really given me an answer as to whether he sat down and strategized it. But a few weeks after [after his son was apparently brainwashed] he started getting all these calls at his office, when he was a special representative for Governor Ronald Reagan. At one point he infiltrated The Children of God and studied their techniques. He almost uses similar techniques that people describe cults using. But he would say that he’s doing the opposite.
There’s a funny irony in an African-‐American man acting on behalf of Reagan’s conservative culture, compelling white suburban kids back into the mainstream. I didn’t think much about it until more recently because he was very involved with civil rights in San Diego and that’s how he got the job with Reagan. He moved from Tennessee to California and his quote is that he thought he was moving to God’s country but it turned out to be Satan’s country for black people. He said it was worse in San Diego than in Chattanooga, Tennessee. So he started organisations that would picket places that didn’t hire blacks and it was successful. He’s also credited with calming down the riots during the Watts Riots with all these volunteer parents who talk to the protesting kids and keep them calm. It’s almost like that’s where it started. The moral authority of parents is an interesting topic in the film. Do you sympathise with those 1950s mums and dads whose children – many of whom were over 21– left home? To a degree, for sure. Imagine if you’re following the Charles Manson case and then your daughter moves to a hippie commune and people are saying, “That guy’s like Charles Manson”. After the Jonestown Massacre, that’s when deprogramming had a few years of huge demand. Everybody in the film whose tapes we see are post-‐Jonestown. Were any of these cults completely beneficial for their followers or was there always something sinister? I don’t think it was always sinister. Highly controlled groups take on the personality of their leader. Jim Jones was never considered a cult leader until after the massacre. They were an evangelical church and he was praised for being the first church to integrate in the South. Then he became increasingly paranoid because he was doing lots of drugs and having sexual relations with people. You could say the same with Waco or Heaven’s Gate. But there are so many groups, like Aaron from The Christ Family, who are still around. I don’t know what they were like when Lightning Amen was alive but today they’re just a bunch of old hippies who live together. It would be so terrible to take them out at this point! So the film’s not really talking about religion as much about gender, about men who exploit people. I was seeing it more as about what happens in a group. Is there such a thing as mind control or ‘thought reform’? How much power of manipulation can someone have over someone else? Often in the groups it’s the group members themselves, not just the leader. There’s a lot going on. There’s something infectious. The Moonies had a practice called ‘love bombing’ to recruit lonely people on college campuses. Did you avoid addressing Scientology on purpose? It’s very difficult to engage with Scientologists for a bunch of reasons. But we did meet a French Scientologist who was very open in talking about deprogramming. They sued deprogrammers, including Ted Patrick, constantly. He admitted that they paid for lawyers from different cults! They paid for the high-‐powered lawyers of these kids and they crushed them. So what do you conclude about Ted Patrick. Was he a marginalised hero or a misguided stooge of the Man? He’s basically become discredited completely by the anti-‐cult movement today. It’s now called ‘Exit Counselling’. They’re all dissociated from him because they were afraid of getting sued. They associated it with kidnapping and unlawful detention, but Ted Patrick didn’t care. A lot of deprogrammers were well intentioned but as soon as they got arrested for the first time they freaked out. So now there’s exit counselling, which is like an intervention. And I think it’s less effective. Ted’s an important figure in that history. He was the first person to recognise that problem and come up with a strategy to intervene. He didn’t evolve over the years whereas other people went to university and became therapists. But there’s nobody else who did it before him. And there’s nobody else who’ll do it after him! Except in Japan. There’s a deprogramming movement there, mostly of Moonies by Christian pastors. But that’s a whole other story. Thanks Mia.
HOT DOCS 2015 REVIEW: DEPROGRAMMED By: Andrew Parker | April 27, 2015
http://thetfs.ca/2015/04/27/hot-‐docs-‐2015-‐review-‐deprogrammed/ Between the 1960s and 80s, parents everywhere lived in mostly unfounded fears that their children would run off to join Satanic cults. Most of the cults people would join, however, were peace loving groups that had more skewed views of the role of Jesus or God rather than Satan. Organizations like The Christ Family, Love Family, The Moonies, and belief in Hare Krishna flourished, and so too did the work of deprogrammers, men and women who would attempt to take young men and women from the organization they seem so taken by and fix their minds so they could reintegrate themselves into “normal society.” The methods used by deprogrammers were often forms of psychological and physical abuse in and of themselves, with those going into treatment being kidnapped and confined against their will. Filmmaker Mia Donovan looks primarily at one deprogrammer in particular – the charismatic and soft spoken Ted “Black Lightning” Patrick – because she has a personal connection to him via her former stepbrother, a troubled man living alone in the woods who was one of Patrick’s last cases. Deprogrammed starts off deeply and sometimes uncomfortably personal and intimate before spending a lot of time with former cult members and people who shared the same job as Patrick. The general consensus is that while some deprogramming might have been necessary, it often wasn’t warranted, and the acts committed by deprogrammers were coercive, dangerous, traumatic, and in most cases, completely unwarranted. Even worse, deprogramming was carried out quite often by people who have no previous experience or study of psychology and psychiatry. Donovan blends a look at a fundamental misunderstanding of good and evil with a well researched ethnographic history of youth culture in the late 20th century. It’s clear all around that despite people having the best of intentions, everyone on all sides – especially the deprogrammers – made things even worse. The stories from the survivors of deprogramming are as damning as the success stories of people saved from potentially harmful situations. Extensive use of archival footage provided by Patrick also adds a lot. The personal stuff from Donovan’s perspective might be a bit underdeveloped at first, but it comes together nicely by the end. IS DEPROGRAMMED ESSENTIAL FESTIVAL VIEWING? Yes, it’s an original take on a topic that hasn’t been explored this in depth from both sides before. DEPROGRAMMED SCREENING TIMES Monday, April 27, 2015 – 1:30 pm – Scotiabank Theatre Thursday, April 30, 2015 – 9:45 pm – TIFF Bell Lightbox
Review: 'Canadian Spectrum' is Hot Docs’ salute to home By: Sarah Gopaul | April 22, 2015
http://www.digitaljournal.com/a-‐and-‐e/entertainment/review-‐canadian-‐spectrum-‐is-‐hot-‐docs-‐salute-‐to home/article/431358
Hot Docs shines a spotlight on homegrown documentaries in its “Canadian Spectrum” program, which’s subjects extend beyond the country’s borders.
Every worldly festival also pays homage to its home nation, showcasing the best local creators have to offer. The
“Canadian Spectrum” program at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival features stories produced by Canadians, though many of the subjects reach beyond the country’s borders. Within this year’s selections, filmmakers examine a betrayal of trust on a personal and global scale, one man’s status as both savior and abuser, and the latest industry to covertly attack the world’s population.
Cult prevalence peaked in the ‘70s with a perceptible increase in recruitment numbers. Deprogrammed examines this phenomenon and its “cure,” touted by professional deprogrammer Ted Patrick. The documentary begins by exploring the attraction of these sects, demonstrating their use of counter culture to lure people in before somewhat ironically introducing them to their authoritarian-‐style society. Former cult members who belonged to a variety of groups discuss their experiences in interviews, such as why they enlisted, what membership consisted of and how they felt when Patrick attempted to dissuade them. “Surrender is a powerful experience,” says one former member. Director Mia Donovan’s way into the story is her step-‐brother’s encounter with Patrick in the ‘80s when metal music became (erroneously) synonymous with Satan worship and his parents called upon Patrick to rescue their misguided son. Patrick’s techniques included kidnapping, sleep deprivation, reasoning, repetition and seclusion. He built the foundations for deprogramming, the fundamentals of which remain unchanged; but this recognition is sometimes paired with disapproval for many of his devices. Though there was widespread panic about cults, it was not until the Jonestown massacre that people truly took note. Nonetheless, Patrick’s “clients” reflect on their confrontations with the street-‐wise specialist with mixed opinions on the effectiveness of his methods.
Hot Docs 2015: Reshaping Reality By: Adam Nayman | April 23, 2015
http://povmagazine.com/articles/view/hot-‐docs-‐2015-‐reshaping-‐reality
There’s a similar quality of performance in Ted Patrick, the subject, though not necessarily the protagonist, of Mia Donovan’s unnerving Deprogrammed, which examines both the proliferation of religious cults in North America the late 1970s and the methodology of one man who has spent the ensuing decades attempting to extricate impressionable young people from their clutches. Taking his nickname, “Black Lightning,” from an African-‐American comic book hero and seemingly inventing his modus operandi as he went along, Patrick was considered a hero for clashing with Hare Krishnas and the California-‐based Children of God, but he also attracted controversy for his extra-‐ legal tactics, which included kidnapping and imprisonment. Donovan, whose last film was the excellent porn-‐star profile Inside Lara Roxx, has a personal stake in Patrick’s story: her stepbrother Matthew was deprogrammed when the filmmaker was 14 years old, and she remembers meeting “Black Lightning” in the flesh when he visited her family’s home in Moncton a few days later. “My memories of meeting Ted Patrick back then are bitter,” she says, “because he convinced both my mom and Matthew’s dad to go through my room to take away any items that could trigger Matthew to return to the alleged Satanic cult. They took some of my books and records and even art work. I remember being very frustrated by that. And I remember thinking Ted and Matthew’s father were very misguided in terms of what they considered ‘Satanic’.” The question of public hysteria around religious cults is very much present inDeprogrammed, which integrates a detailed profile of Patrick, whom Donovan contacted again in 2012, with interviews with people he deprogrammed years ago and a general historical overview, which also touches on the Jonestown Massacre. “I was very open-‐minded and excited to talk to [Ted] because by that time I had started researching the subject of cultic mind-‐control and intervention strategies, so I understood his place in history and his contributions. I knew that he was the man who invented deprogramming, so I was interested in the bigger picture, in order to understand why they decided to deprogram Matthew.” As in Inside Lara Roxx, Donovan’s approach is at once unsparing and compassionate: the scenes featuring Matthew are troubling mostly because the filmmaker allows him to narrate his anger and alienation at being subjected to what he describes as a form of psychological abuse at Patrick’s hands. “I think that both films explore characters that are often dismissed or stigmatized,” says the director. “Lara being an ex-‐porn star who contracted HIV and Matthew being a juvenile delinquent and an ex-‐con, one similarity between them is that they both, in a sense, had their ‘coming of age years’ interrupted.” The irony here is that Patrick presents himself as a man who tried to reclaim youth that had been literally or figuratively stolen. To her credit, Donovan refuses any sort of definitive judgment on his legacy.
Deprogrammed By: Norman Wilner | April 27, 2015 https://nowtoronto.com/movies/hot-‐docs-‐2015/deprogrammed/
DEPROGRAMMED (Mia Donovan, Canada). 90 minutes. Rating: NNN
Mia Donovan's Deprogrammed looks at the cult hysteria of the 70s through the work of Ted Patrick, a flamboyant self-‐styled deprogrammer hired by worried parents to rescue college-‐age kids who'd joined ashrams or communes -‐ although, in present-‐day interviews, Patrick's "cured" subjects all admit they eventually just told him what he wanted to hear so he'd let them go. One of them is Donovan's stepbrother Matthew, whom Patrick attempted to free from supposed Satanic influences in 1988. Patrick is a fascinating subject, and Donovan (Inside Lara Roxx) knows it, spending plenty of time letting him justify his methods -‐ and subtly suggesting that his and his fellow deprogrammers' self-‐righteous convictions were, and still are, just as cultish as those of the Moonies or the Hare Krishnas. But she's so invested in him that she lets other aspects of Deprogrammed slide -‐ especially Matthew's story, which remains frustratingly undefined. Apr 26, 6:15 pm, TIFF 3; Apr 27, 1:30 pm, Scotiabank 3; Apr 30, 9:45 pm, TIFF 2
HotDocs ’15 – Day 3: Deprogrammed By: Jorge Ignacio Castillo | April 26, 2015
http://www.prairiedogmag.com/hotdocs-‐15-‐day-‐3-‐deprogrammed/
Deprogrammed (USA, 2015): Cult deprogramming is a complicated affair: Those in need of it won’t participate voluntarily and kidnapping and unlawful confinement is, well, illegal. In the early 70’s –the heyday of religious cult activity-‐ a high school dropout became the foremost specialist in the subject. Deprogrammed tells the story of said man, Ted Patrick. His methods were questionable, his results 50/50, but undoubtedly he was onto something. His main skill was his capacity to poke holes into ideologies. His modus operandi? Get the cult members to start thinking by themselves again. Early on, Patrick got some leash from the law. He was frequently accused of kidnapping (even though parents hired him, his “patients” were old enough to refuse), but was seldom convicted and not for long, especially after the events in Guyana. During the 80’s however, legislation became tougher and the satanic cult paranoia actually got innocents damaged for life (see the West Memphis Three). The documentary does a superb job depicting the nebulous area in which Patrick operated. Deprogrammed also establishes the need of a new strategy, especially now that ISIS and Al Qaeda is recruiting from among disgruntled young westerners and the law discourages an approach such as Patrick’s. Fascinating stuff. Three and a half prairie dogs.
Hot Docs Review: 'Deprogrammed' By: Pat Mullen | April 28, 2015
http://www.cinemablographer.com/2015/04/hot-‐docs-‐review-‐deprogrammed.html Deprogrammed (Canada, 90 min.) Dir. Mia Donovan Programme: Canadian Spectrum (World Premiere)
The endlessly peculiar world of cults come full-‐circle with the thought-‐provoking docDeprogrammed. Director Mia Donovan (Inside Lara Roxx) returns to the festival with the story of professional deprogrammer Ted “Black Lighting” Patrick, who made a significant, if notorious, career by extracting individuals from cults and using his deprogramming techniques to remove the ideologies brainwashed into them. Donovan’s brother Matthew is one of Ted’s last efforts, and her personal connection to this unorthodox saviour/sinner offers a wild springboard into the complicated world of unconventional organizations and the lifestyles they breed by deception and choice alike. Patrick’s efforts are highly unorthodox, if not criminal in some cases, as he and individuals involved in previous cases recall efforts in which he extracted (re: kidnapped) cult members from their groups at the behest of concerned family members. His aggressive and unconventional techniques to dissolve the ideas branded into the brains of the cult members is akin to a de-‐brainwashing as he scrubs out the bad influences. Donovan shows how Patrick’s efforts can either save families or tear them apart, and her study of her own brother’s experience turns the table back on the audience to ask if all organizations are evil, or if we simply need to re-‐evaluate to accept beliefs and practices that are as outside the mainstream as Patrick’s own techniques. Deprogrammed is a bound to have audiences talking. Rating: ★★★ (out of ★★★★★) Deprogrammed screens: -‐Thu, Apr 30 at TIFF Lightbox at 9:45 PM
HOT DOCS 2015: ROUNDTABLE, PART 1
By: Mallory Andrews | April 28, 2015
http://moviemezzanine.com/hot-‐docs-‐roundtable/ When we think about manifestations of evil in the world, we are most comfortable with those that are outside our realm of experience. Monsters in childrens’ stories, corrupt world leaders in faraway places, or flashy serial killers in our primetime TV shows. What about when evil is a little more ordinary? The everyday malevolence that invades our homes, our thoughts, even our dreams? Mallory Andrews and Corey Atad sat down to discuss four films from the 2015 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival that delved into the disturbing. Mallory: Exploring what it means to have the right to think and speak your ideas freely is something that I was also left disappointed by inDeprogrammed, Mia Donovan’s movie about the cult victim deprogrammer Ted Patrick and the ethics of his self-‐taught techniques. But oddly enough, here I think the personal approach was the wrong one. I found myself wanting more of a procedural, digging into the step-‐by-‐ step process that Patrick designed to undo a cult’s ideological programming. We see bits and pieces here and there, and hear some witness testimony, but I wanted some nitty-‐gritty details. Corey: Sounds like you and I are in sync on this one. It probably didn’t help that I’d just recently seen Riley Stearns’ film Faults, which follows a Ted Patrick-‐like character as he tries to deprogram a young woman and rescue her from a cult. That film was fictional, but it really got into the weeds of the process, a lot of which I recognized in this documentary. The one really interesting area I thought the documentary shone a light on, which I’d never known about, was the prevalence of Christian-‐based cults in the black community prior to the 1960s explosion of California cults among disenchanted middle-‐class white kids. I wanted to know more about that. Mallory: Right, it’s difficult to forget in our time when Tom Cruise’s couch-‐jumping Scientology antics have become something of a punchline. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the prevalence of Christian-‐based religious fervour was not fringe. This was a time where we had things like Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar making its way into the mainstream. Deprogrammed also touched upon the right to hold certain ideas and values—I think Patrick’s “I have a PhD in common sense” was quite an indictment of the black-‐and-‐white way of looking at cults. How can a “I know it when I see it” position be considered at all morally objective? Corey: To be fair, the film doesn’t take Patrick’s ideas and practices as obviously correct or even right. The ambiguity of what he does is exactly the point, and to that degree I appreciated its outlook. The problem, as you indicated before, is that almost every time it begins interrogating those ambiguities, the film digresses into more personal anecdotes and talking heads describing their feelings and their experiences. There’s a point where that kind of personal approach loses value. The ethical and legal ramifications of forced deprogramming didn’t get their due. Mallory: And I think the structure of the film was a bit off for me. The way Donovan weaved witness testimony throughout was a bit unbalanced. Just when you thought you’d met all the key players, she’d introduce a new one. There was little dramatic tension, which seems a funny thing to ask of a non-‐fiction film, I know, but it’s something that I always appreciate in documentary—not necessarily what’s the most truthful way to tell this story, but what’s the most effective and impactful way. That was a big weakness for me here.
HOT DOCS 2015: DEPROGRAMMED By: Courtney Small | April 29, 2015
http://cinemaaxis.com/2015/04/29/hot-‐docs-‐2015-‐deprogrammed/
Ted Patrick claims to have deprogrammed 1600 individuals who were “brainwashed” by various cults and fake prophets. It is quite an astonishing accomplishment for a man who lacks any formal education in psychology, but has a self-‐ proclaimed doctorate in “common sense.” Given the nickname “Black Lighting” for the swift way he abducts his subjects off the street, Patrick’s unethical methods have been the subject of controversy for years. In her latest documentary, Deprogrammed, Mia Donovan examines whether
Ted Patrick is truly a hero or merely a villain on par with those he rallies against? Donovan’s film paints a compelling narrative regarding personal rights and free will. She takes us back to an era gripped by paranoia, fear and political corruption. A time where the youth, who were fed up with The Vietnam War and a crooked government, found solace in the counter culture alternative religions provided. Deprogrammed, ponders whether or not there are limits to what we claim to be our given right. Should the rights to freedom of religion and freedom of the mind be revoked when it comes to organizations that promote assimilation instead of individual growth? If so, who has the authority to make such a decision? Through interviews with several of the individuals that Patrick “saved”, and the famed deprogrammer himself, Deprogrammed crafts a complex image of Patrick that offers no easy answers. As if waging a solo war on a long history of false religions, Patrick speaks of his time in prison – and the numerous lawsuits against him – with the confidence of a general commented on his various medals of honor. While his “they can’t keep me down” spirit is captivating, the harsh nature of his methods cannot be ignored. One of the dissenting voices against the famed deprogrammer – a man who endured Patrick’s ‘deprogramming” – questions if Patrick’s method actually works? Commenting that, after being physically confined against his will for four days, he simply told Patrick what he wanted to hear and was instantly deemed to be “cured.” By observing the detailed and intricate rise of cults throughout history – Patrick points out that crooked preachers were conning the poor black community long before alternative religions reached white America in the 1960s – it is hard not to see comparisons to modern organizations, such as ISIS, who employ many of the same recruitment tactics. Similar to Donovan, the audience is left to contemplate if Patrick’s groundbreaking and unethical methods, which some consider to have provided the framework for modern day interventions, were justifiable considering the lives that were at stake. Do personal rights and free will have its limits? Patrick would clearly argue that they do. Viewers of the film, on the other hand, will not find the answer to that question to be as clear cut. Screens Thursday, April 30, 9:45 PM, TIFF Bell Lightbox Tickets can be purchased at the Hot Docs website.
Hot Docs 2015: Deprogrammed Review By: Cameron Bryant | April 29, 2015
http://dorkshelf.com/2015/04/29/hot-‐docs-‐2015-‐deprogrammed-‐review/
Canadian Spectrum In Deprogrammed, Mia Donovan takes us into the strange, disturbing and yet completely intriguing world of deprogramming, the process by which one is removed from an alternative religion or cult and brought back into the wider world. Her documentary focuses on a central figure of this movement, Ted Patrick. This is Donovan’s second documentary, after 2011’s Inside Lara Roxx, and in Deprogrammed, she continues her focus on seemingly ordinary people who find themselves in isolating and difficult situations, and who try to make their way back into the world. Deprogrammed comes at a time when there has been a resurgence of interest in cults and alternative religions, exemplified by the enormous viewership of Alex Gibney’s documentary Going Clear about Scientology. Donovan’s subject Ted Patrick is hired by families to retrieve their loved ones from cults and alternative religions, and he uses any number of unorthodox methods to deprogram them and return them to society. She interviews former cult members who include a member of the Children of God, a member of the famed Unification Church under Sun Myung Moon, and her own stepbrother, who had dabbled in Satanism and was one of Patrick’s final causes. The subject is endlessly fascinating, which in many ways makes it simple for a documentary to succeed. But Donovan doesn’t rest on her laurels, and her interviews and archival footage show a relentless interest in weaving together a fascinating tale about the progression of the 60s counterculture into new religious sects, the hostile reaction to these movements by wider society, and one particular man’s opportunity to cash in on the entire situation. At times it feels rough around the edges, and I get the feeling it might take a few more films to reach her stride. But it’s a great subject matter and one that makes for fascinating viewing. Screens: Thu, Apr 30 9:45 PM @ TIFF Bell Lightbox 2
Hot Docs 2015: Deprogrammed By: C. j. Prince | April 27, 2015
http://waytooindie.com/news/hot-‐docs-‐2015-‐deprogrammed/ Mia Donovan’s Deprogrammed profiles Ted Patrick, the man who pioneered the practice of “deprogramming” cult members. During the ‘70s and ‘80s, a time when the media had a large fascination with cults, Patrick would get hired by desperate parents to help save their children from whatever pseudo-‐religion they joined. Patrick would kidnap his target, take them to an undisclosed location, and spend weeks berating them into rejoining society. He deprogrammed thousands of people for over a decade before new laws in the ‘80s wound up bankrupting him and putting him in prison.
Donovan certainly has a compelling figure on her hands, but Deprogrammed feels largely formless, as if it confused sitting on its hands with an objective approach. The film’s interview subjects, including Patrick himself along with several people he deprogrammed, make points both for and against Patrick’s methods, but nothing ever coheres into a salient point. It’s disappointing, although Donovan gets enough information out of her interview subjects that Deprogrammed never gets dull. But perhaps the biggest sign of how Deprogrammed can feel misguided is how Donovan bookends her film. In the opening minutes, she reveals a personal connection to Patrick through her estranged stepbrother, who was kidnapped and deprogrammed as a teen for being into heavy metal music (this was at the height of “Satanic Panic” in the news). It’s an intriguing hook, but Donovan doesn’t return to it until the closing minutes. It’s a choice that’s somewhat baffling, considering how much potential it has (Donovan mentions that this is the first time she’s seen her stepbrother in almost two decades). There’s definitely a worthy film somewhere in Deprogrammed, but its lackadaisical final product is more letdown than triumph.
HOTDOCS 2015 REVIEW: DEPROGRAMMED (2015) April 28, 2015
http://www.terrorintoronto.com/blog/2015/4/28/hotdocs-‐2015-‐review-‐deprogrammed-‐2015
The 1960’s gave rise to many radical religious organizations which used brainwashing techniques to convince them to break ties with their existing families. DEPROGRAMMED is about the controversial techniques used by Ted “Black Lightening” Patrick and the moral implications of using such techniques. An unabashedly uneducated man, Ted Patrick took on a noble cause, helping families to undue the brainwashing used by cults against their children (many of which were over the age of consent). Patrick’s primary method was to physically kidnap the individuals, and spend days (if not weeks) using repetitive questioning and sleep deprivation to make them susceptible to questioning the values of the cult leaders. The film uses effective use of video footage shot during the 1970’s and 1980’s, showing the actual deprogramming sessions that often landed him in jail. Ted believed what he was doing was moral and necessary to help people, regardless of the disregard for civil risks. The documentary does a good job of showing both other side of the argument. Subjects of Ted’s deprogramming are interviewed, many believe he did a great job, some believe he could have used more effective techniques, and some believe he did them serious harm. Patrick is definitely a fascinating, but complicated man. I applaud the filmmakers for showing multiple side of the argument, but it does appear to be a bit of a puff piece on Partrick. My gut is that the real nasty side of his practices has been deliberately withheld from the viewing audience. Cults are harmful, but we should lead by example when trying to “help” others, because free people, are free to be brainwashed if they wish to be so. DEPROGRAMMED screens as part of the 2015 Hot Docs Film Festival
7 Worth Seeing At Hot Docs 2015 By: Corey Pierce | April 25, 2015 http://www.rowthree.com/2015/04/25/7-‐worth-‐seeing-‐at-‐hot-‐docs-‐2015/
DEPROGRAMMED Hot on the heels of high profile Scientology doc “Going Clear” comes Deprogrammed, a look at how the wave of cults and communes in the 70s gave rise to Ted “Black Lightning” Patrick’s famed brand of deprogramming, which itself involved abduction and confinement to achieve its goals. Many years into Patrick’s flamboyant career of reverse-‐ engineering brainswashing techniques, well into the 80s Satanic Panic, he came upon Matthew, the brother of filmmaker Mia Donavan, who would become one of Patrick’s final causes. Punctuated by intermittent (and unfortunately, poorly executed) narration from Donavan, Deprogrammed investigates the issues of control regarding such techniques where the cult members are not willing participants in the exercise, if the ends justify the means, and if there are negative repercussions of someone with no true credentials (and who himself believes is doing the work of God) taking the reins on fragile minds. Donavan gives the charismatic Black Lighting plenty of time to defend himself, but in the end I found myself left wanting for much more of her seemingly scarred, gravelly, constant f-‐bomb dropping brother. Without a more thorough look at her own sibling, Deprogrammed is engaging but feels incomplete.
10 FILMS TO SEE AT HOT DOCS 2015 By: Courtney Small | April 15, 2015
http://cinemaaxis.com/2015/04/15/10-‐films-‐to-‐see-‐at-‐hot-‐docs-‐2015/ The sun is shining and spirits are high which can only signify that Hot Docs 2015 is near. Running from April 23 to May 3, the Hot Docs festival is getting ready to unleash another year of captivating and entertaining films. Showcasing over 200 documentaries, it can be a daunting task deciding which films to grab tickets for. Here are 10 films that we cannot wait to see at the festival this year: Deprogrammed Filmmaker Mia Donovan sets out to address questions about control and freedom in her examination of Ted “Black Lighting” Patrick. Rising to fame for testifying about the dangers of brainwashing, Patrick used unorthodox methods of abduction and physical confinement to “deprogram” those who had been allegedly swayed by alternative religions and radical communes.
HotDocs ’15 – Day 3: Deprogrammed By: Jorge Ignacio Castillo | April 27, 2015 http://www.planetsmag.com/blog?id=595
Deprogrammed (USA, 2015): Cult deprogramming is a complicated affair: Those in need of it won’t participate voluntarily and kidnapping and unlawful confinement is, well, illegal. In the early 70’s –the heyday of religious cult activity-‐ a high school dropout became the foremost specialist in the subject. Deprogrammed tells the story of said man, Ted Patrick. His methods were questionable, his results 50/50, but undoubtedly he was onto something. His main skill was his capacity to poke holes into ideologies. His modus operandi? Get the cult members to start thinking by themselves again. Early on, Patrick got some leash from the law. He was frequently accused of kidnapping (even though parents hired him, his “patients” were old enough to refuse), but was seldom convicted and not for long, especially after the events in Guyana. During the 80’s however, legislation became tougher and the satanic cult paranoia actually got innocents damaged for life (see the West Memphis Three). The documentary does a superb job depicting the nebulous area in which Patrick operated. Deprogrammedalso establishes the need of a new strategy, especially now that ISIS and Al Qaeda is recruiting from among disgruntled young westerners and the law discourages an approach such as Patrick’s. Fascinating stuff. Three and a half planets.
Deprogrammed Premieres at Hot Docs April 21, 2015
http://www.semprinirecords.com/news/166 Ram Borcar's most recent scoring project, Deprogrammedpremieres at Toronto's Hot Docs Film Festival on Sunday April 26th. Directed by Mia Donovan (Inside Lara Roxx) and produced by EyeSteelFilm, Deprogrammed explores the controversial career of Ted 'Black Lighting' Patrick who made it his life's work to 'reverse brainwash' people who'd joined religious cults by using unorthodox and often illegal methods. For tickets and screening times visit the Hot Docs site here.
Hot Docs 2015: What films you should see at this year's festival By: Jim Slotek | April 18, 2015
http://www.torontosun.com/2015/04/18/hot-‐docs-‐2015-‐what-‐films-‐you-‐should-‐see-‐at-‐this-‐years-‐festival
We look at 13 films ahead of Canada's premiere documentary film festival Okay, so the red carpet scene isn’t as much of a “thing.” But Toronto’s annual Hot Docs Film Festival carries arguably as much impact in the documentary world as TIFF does on the wider cinema scene. Hot Docs is a leading-‐edge intro into the non-‐fiction films people will be talking about through 2015, and is a pretty good predictor of the docs that will be getting Oscar attention. Examples: this year’s nom Virunga and recent-‐vintage Oscar winners like The Cove and Man on Wire. Some 210 documentaries from 44 countries are programmed at 12 different venues, starting with the April 23 opening night premiere of TIG, a profile of the Grammy-‐winning comedian Tig Notaro, whose battle with cancer informed the most inspired comedy of her career. Herewith: a sampling of 13 Hot Docs films we previewed. DEPROGRAMMED: Whatever happened to “Jesus Freak” cults? Or Satanic covens that supposedly operated within daycare centres? In the paranoid good old days, deprogrammer Ted Patrick was “the Man,” hired by parents into kidnapping kids off the streets and haranguing sense into them for days. This doc by Montrealer Mia Donovan (Inside Lara Roxx) examines the now-‐retired, controversial deprogrammer and what harm and good he wrought in his arguably illegal career. Repost: 24Hrs: Vancouver -‐ 04.18.2015 – “Hot Docs 2015: What films you should see at this year's festival” http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/2015/04/18/hot-‐docs-‐2015-‐what-‐films-‐you-‐should-‐see-‐ at-‐this-‐years-‐festival
Even Super Serious Documentaries Deserve an Afterparty By: Alan Jones | May 4, 2015
https://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/this-‐is-‐what-‐an-‐afterparty-‐for-‐a-‐serious-‐depressing-‐documentary-‐ looks-‐like-‐294
The first party we checked out was the Blue Ice Party at SPiN, which served as a de facto host party for a number of documentaries. SPiN is "that ping pong bar co-‐owned by Susan Sarandon" in Toronto's bougie King West district. Given that you probably won't escape the place without getting hit in the head by at least half a dozen (mercifully painless) ping pong balls, it's hardly the kind of place where you want to think about the need to de-‐radicalize young people from dangerous cults and extremist organizations, but here we were, talking to Mia Donovan and Ted Patrick, the director and star of Deprogrammed, a doc about Patrick's controversial practices of kidnapping and confining young people in order to save them from themselves. "This is my first party with ping pong, but I think it totally fits," says Donovan, "especially if it's a very serious topic, you want to loosen up." The 85-‐year-‐old Ted Patrick was flown in from San Diego for the festival, but after 40-‐odd years of "deprogramming" kids, he's gotten used to the parties that tend to follow: "I've been to many of them, many, around the world," he says, "when [people are] deprogrammed, they always have some kind of celebration."
Hot Docs Festival Taps Into Virtual Reality By: Jennie Punter | April 24, 2015 http://variety.com/2015/film/festivals/hot-‐docs-‐festival-‐taps-‐into-‐virtual-‐reality-‐1201479466/ nd The 22 annual Hot Docs festival, which kicked off April 23, is tapping into the reignited interest and recent developments in virtual reality. The fest’s longstanding commitment to value-‐added screenings hits a high note this year with the participation of a record 95% of Hot Docs filmmakers and over 50 guests — among them, Fugees rapper Pras Michel (“Sweet Micky for President”), Olympic gold medal-‐winning boxer Claressa Shields (“T-‐Rex”), Utah SWAT-‐team founder William Lawrence (SXSW doc competish winner “Peace Officer”), young indigenous activist and lawyer Caleb Behn (the world-‐ preeming “Fractured Land”), anti-‐cult crusader Ted Patrick (the fresh-‐out-‐of-‐post “Deprogrammed”), disguise-‐ wearing, corruption-‐exposing Ghanaian journo Anas Aremeyaw Anas (“Chameleon”), members of the Middle East’s first all-‐women race car team (“Speed Sisters”), and the four young men who ride adopted wild mustangs on a 3,000-‐ mile trek across five states in the world-‐preeming “Unbranded.” While market activity — including confab centerpiece the Hot Docs Forum (the high-‐profile “The Jazz Ambassadors” is among 20 committee-‐selected projects being pitched) and face-‐to-‐face sessions like Distributor Rendezvous — has yet to unfold officially, Toronto’s based Blue Ice Docs snapped up Canuck rights to “Deprogrammed” and “Around the World in 50 Concerts” just before the fest. Hot Docs kicked off April 23 and ends May 3.
Blue Ice Docs acquires Hot Docs duo By: Jeremy Kay | April 23, 2015
http://www.screendaily.com/news/distribution/blue-‐ice-‐docs-‐acquires-‐hot-‐docs-‐duo/5086908.article The distributor has picked up Canadian rights to Mia Donovan’s Deprogrammed and Heddy Honigmann’s Around The World In 50 Concerts ahead of Toronto Hot Docs. Deprogrammed (pictured) will receive its world premiere at the festival on Sunday (April 26) and chronicles Ted “Black Lighting” Patrick and his anti-‐cult crusade based on his ‘reverse brainwashing’ technique inaugurated in the early 1970s. KinoSmith president Robin Smith and Blue Ice Group co-‐ owners Steven Silver and Neil Tabatznik formed Blue Ice Docs in 2014. Hot Docs kicks off in Toronto today (April 23) and runs through May 3.
All pictures taken by GAT during the festival are available here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/97627695@N03/sets/72157652192493286
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