Kickstart Sunday: ‘Kidnapped For Christ’

Every week on Film Pulse we like to highlight a film that is currently being crowd-funded, in order to promote unique and interesting independent film projects.  Kick your week off right by donating to this filmmaker and help them make their vision a reality.

This week we’d like to highlight Kidnapped For Christ, directed by Kate Logan.  This documentary takes a look at the lives of several American teens who were taken from their homes and placed in an Evangelical Christian reform school located in The Dominican Republic.  This is a non-profit campaign, which is raising funds on behalf of International Documentary, which should give you even more reason to ” target=”_blank”>donate and pledge your support.  Hit the jump for more info.

Kidnapped for Christ follows the stories of several American teenagers who were taken from their homes and sent to an Evangelical Christian reform school located in The Dominican Republic known as Escuela Caribe. The school is run by Americans and is advertised as a “therapeutic Christian boarding school” whose mission is to “help struggling youth transform into healthy Christian adults.” In reality, this school employed classic brainwashing techniques to breakdown and re-build its students.

One such student was David, a gay teenager taken in the middle of the night to the Dominican Republic to be re-programmed into a straight, born-again Christian. Once David’s community found out what had happened to him, they formed a plan to bring him home on his 18th birthday. The struggles they faced to get David released revealed just how far Escuela Caribe would go to prevent a student from leaving.