Aimee Semple McPherson (film)
| Aimee Semple McPherson | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Richard Rossi |
| Produced by | Frank Carvajal Connie Fleishauer |
| Written by | Richard Rossi |
| Starring |
Mimi Michaels Rance Howard Carl Ballantine Teres Byrne |
| Music by | Richard Rossi Nita Sinaga |
| Edited by | Adam Lightplay Jaime Prater |
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Release date
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Running time
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110 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Aimee Semple McPherson (2006) is a feature length dramatic biopic about evangelist "Sister" Aimee Semple McPherson.
The cast includes Mimi Michaels, Rance Howard, and Kiera Chaplin. Richard Rossi wrote, directed and also acted in the film. Rossi shot the film with a $300 consumer camcorder. The movie has a jittery, sepia-toned 1920s motif, employing silent film cards and a period look with a contemporary documentary style. The film was made under a special agreement with the Screen Actor's Guild for experimental films with budgets under $75,000.
A group of Evangelicals offered to invest $2 million in the film, but with conditions that the movie did not depict McPherson's divorce or drug overdose and that the actor playing the lead be a Pentecostal Christian. Rossi turned them down. "By saying no to conditions that religious people put on me, I feel I'm actually of more service to God and people because I make an honest film," he said.
Rossi admitted telling his own story allegorically through telling Sister Aimee's. In November, 2001, Rossi, a healing evangelist, received restoration treatment for depression and healing from childhood abuse at Healing for the Nations ministry in Atlanta, Georgia. "I was trying to help everybody else, but I was feeling empty inside," Rossi said. "It was like I was trying to fix the whole world, but I couldn't fix myself. It was a pretty lonely feeling."
According to Christianity Today, the film "goes much deeper" than previous portrayals of McPherson, including The Disappearance of Aimee, a 1970s television movie starring Faye Dunaway, and Rossi's own 37-minute 2001 documentary film Saving Sister Aimee.
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