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Showtime to Air Kidnapped for Christ, Exposé of Antigay Reform School

Showtime to Air Kidnapped for Christ, Exposé of Antigay Reform School

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The powerful documentary will premiere on Showtime Thursday night.

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Kidnapped for Christ, the award-winning documentary about young people sent against their will to an evangelical Christian reform school, some of them simply for being gay, will make its TV premiere on Showtime Thursday night.

The film profiles students at Escuela Caribe in the Dominican Republic, including David, a 17-year-old honor student from Colorado, sent to the school shortly after coming out to his parents; Beth, a 15-year-old from Michigan suffering from debilitating panic attacks; and Tai, a 16-year-old Haitian-American girl from Boston experimenting with drugs to cope with childhood trauma.

Director Kate Logan initially believed Escuela Caribe was helping struggling young people and intended to make a film showing the Christian boarding school in a positive light, so the school granted her extensive access, even allowing her to live on campus for a summer. But after she witnessed the abusive treatment the students received, she made a very different film, and the experience undermined her belief in evangelical Christianity. Click here to read Logan's 2013 interview with The Advocate about the film and her spiritual journey.

Kidnapped for Christ has been a hit at film festivals; it won the Special Jury Award at this year's Nashville Film Festival and the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 2014 Slamdance Film Festival. It is continuing to screen at festivals around the nation.

The Showtime premiere will be at 7:30 p.m. Eastern/Pacific, and the network will screen the documentary several more times in July and August. Check here for times, and find more information at the film's official site. And watch a trailer below.

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Trudy Ring

Trudy Ring is The Advocate’s senior politics editor and copy chief. She has been a reporter and editor for daily newspapers and LGBTQ+ weeklies/monthlies, trade magazines, and reference books. She is a political junkie who thinks even the wonkiest details are fascinating, and she always loves to see political candidates who are groundbreaking in some way. She enjoys writing about other topics as well, including religion (she’s interested in what people believe and why), literature, theater, and film. Trudy is a proud “old movie weirdo” and loves the Hollywood films of the 1930s and ’40s above all others. Other interests include classic rock music (Bruce Springsteen rules!) and history. Oh, and she was a Jeopardy! contestant back in 1998 and won two games. Not up there with Amy Schneider, but Trudy still takes pride in this achievement.
Trudy Ring is The Advocate’s senior politics editor and copy chief. She has been a reporter and editor for daily newspapers and LGBTQ+ weeklies/monthlies, trade magazines, and reference books. She is a political junkie who thinks even the wonkiest details are fascinating, and she always loves to see political candidates who are groundbreaking in some way. She enjoys writing about other topics as well, including religion (she’s interested in what people believe and why), literature, theater, and film. Trudy is a proud “old movie weirdo” and loves the Hollywood films of the 1930s and ’40s above all others. Other interests include classic rock music (Bruce Springsteen rules!) and history. Oh, and she was a Jeopardy! contestant back in 1998 and won two games. Not up there with Amy Schneider, but Trudy still takes pride in this achievement.