Content Warning: This article may be disturbing to some readers as it includes mentions of suicide and the Heaven’s Gate cult
What could turn a housewife into a cult leader? That is one of the questions director Michael Gallagher sought to answer with his film The Leader, which held its Canadian premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal on Thursday.
Starring Vera Farmiga (The Conjuring) and Tim Blake Nelson (Watchmen) in the lead roles, the film tells the story of dissatisfied housewife Bonnie Lu Nettles and religiously devout Marshall Herff Applewhite as they form the group which will come to be known as Heaven’s Gate.
Through awareness lessons offered to vulnerable people in search of purpose, Nettles and Applewhite, calling themselves Do and Ti, indoctrinate their followers into their belief system in which human bodies serve merely as “vehicles” for extraterrestrial beings who will soon rise to a higher consciousness.
As a San Diego native himself, Gallagher says he has been looking to understand the cult and the tragedy that marked it his entire life.
“I was eight years old, 39 people committed suicide in my neighborhood, and it just impacted me like you wouldn’t believe. It was something that, my whole life, I just wanted answers. So, I found by digging in and looking past the headlines in the tabloid and seeing them as human beings, that was for me the whole reason to do the movie.”
Made almost three decades after what remains the largest mass suicide on U.S. soil, the film explores how people in search of meaning can fall prey to dogmatism and cult rhetoric, not because they are deranged, but because they are human.
Farmiga says the exploration of this facet of the human experience is what drew her to the project.
“I’m guilty of dismissing these people as lunatics when I saw it on television, and mining sort of the heart and the humanity beneath those punchlines is what was very appealing to me,” said Farmiga.
“The question is not really, how could they? Could any of us do that, you know, if the circumstances were right?”
For Fantasia artistic director and director of international programming Mitch Davis, beyond its role as a period piece, The Leader also touches on many present-day issues.
“The film is very compassionate, and then compelling and deeply haunting. It’s a period piece; at the same time, it speaks in smart ways to the current United States in terms of a cult of personality, reactionary alienation and the destruction of consensus reality.”
With the announcement that Gallagher and the Academy-Award nominated actress would be in attendance at the screening, film lovers from Montreal and beyond made their way down to the festival to welcome them to the city.
Los Angeles filmmaker Haneol Lee, whose short film KPOP Smoothie is premiering at Fantasia on Saturday, was among them, attending the screening mere hours after he landed in Montreal.
“I can already feel that there’s a lot of cinema lovers here, like cinephiles, which is always heartwarming for a filmmaker because then it makes you think: ‘Oh, people do like watching movies in theaters still’.”
Danielle McRae Spisso, another Californian filmmaker in attendance, echoed the sentiment.
“Especially in times like this where things are a little crazy all over the world, it’s nice to see people come together and be able to enjoy movies together.”
For Gallagher, he hopes one message sticks with audiences watching the film.
“We should be aware of the dangers of certainty. Because when there is nothing but certainty, and there’s blind faith, I think that’s where danger can strike, and so, I think it’s really important for us to check in with ourselves about our beliefs and the people telling us what to believe.”
The Fantasia film festival runs at Concordia University and Cinéma du Musée until Aug. 2. Tickets can be purchased in person at the Fantasia Box Office and online.
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