Heathens trailer lands ahead of 24 October festival premiere
Five people who have left their religions behind travel to the Blue Ridge Mountains for a retreat together.
That meeting is the heart of Heathens, a documentary directed and produced by David Cowan and Shawn Hardin. An exclusive first look at the trailer was published on 8 October, according to Deadline. The film follows the five strangers as they talk through what they left and what comes next.
The launch is set for the festival circuit. Heathens will hold its world premiere — its first public screening — on 24 October at the United Nations Association Film Festival, known as UNAFF, in the San Francisco Bay Area, Deadline reported. UNAFF is a festival devoted to human rights and social issues. It brings documentary makers and local audiences together for films that might otherwise struggle for attention.
The rollout after that stays in California and moves quickly. The film will screen at the University of Southern California on 27 October. Then it will begin a theatre run in Los Angeles at Laemmle NoHo on 30 October. A theatre run means regular, ticketed shows at a cinema, the step where a small film tests whether word of mouth builds.
November brings two community dates. Heathens will have a San Francisco screening on 6 November with US Congressman Jared Huffman. It will then screen on 15 November at the Center for Inquiry Los Angeles. The Center is a community organisation focused on science, reason and secular life, so the audience will come with its own questions about faith and leaving it.
The producing team is small. Cowan and Hardin direct and produce the film. The executive producers — the senior backers who help fund and guide a production — are Rebecca Cammisa, Brad Feld and Amy Batchelor, according to Deadline. Cammisa is a two-time Oscar nominee for God Is the Bigger Elvis and Which Way Home. Her name gives the project a link to the awards world for non-fiction film.
Cowan and Hardin arrive from outside the usual studio system. Cowan is described as an Emmy-nominated filmmaker as well as a science philanthropist and venture capitalist, while Hardin is described as a filmmaker and tech entrepreneur, according to Pale Blue Film. Their company is Pale Blue Film.
What makes this stand out is the shape of the release. Festival premiere first. Campus screening next. Then an arthouse theatre, then two evenings built around conversation. For audiences curious about the subject, each stop offers a different room to hear it in.
