Feb 23, 2017

Documentary - The Devil's Trap



Mitchell Stafiej (Canada). World premiere.

CPH:DOX, Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival,

When he was 18, the now 25-year-old Lane was kicked out of the fundamentalist Christian cult that his family is still a member of, and they haven’t spoken to him since. ‘The Exclusive Brethren’ is a powerful, rich and extremely sealed off cult that rejects everything – and by that we mean everything! – except themselves as being satanic. Now, Lane decides to visit them on a road trip through fanaticism’s USA and Canada. A dark and nightmarish world of neon crosses, militantly organised sects, deadly alcoholism and drug abuse. And a journey where the outwardly strong and re-socialised Lane confronts the demons of his past with the director Mitchell Stafiej on the passenger seat of his car. But when he finally manages to meet his brother, it is till far from a happy ending. ‘The Devil’s Trap’ is the first film about the notoriously secretive but extensive and extremely well-organised ‘Exclusive Brethren’, but also tells a frightening and far more universal story about how radical parallel societies can dominate their members. Lane’s story about how he as a teenager for the first time saw a film in a cinema is nothing less than a staggering image of the clash between two realities.

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