Prolific filmmaker Amy Berg has yet another movie set for release in 2015. It was only last month that the Academy Award nominee debuted the documentary “An Open Secret” and her first narrative feature, “Every Secret Thing.”
Berg’s latest, “Prophet’s Prey,” focuses on Warren Jeffs, the former president of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) and current convict. The one-time leader of the most prominent polygamous Mormon sect in North America was charged and found guilty of sexually assaulting underage girls.
The disturbing trailer features an interviewee, Jeffs’ nephew, saying that the so-called prophet “was abusing these kids, and then he’d go right back on top of that stage and preach the word of God.” In 2010, Jeffs landed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List when he tried to flee from prosecution in Utah.
Berg received her Oscar nom for “Deliver Us from Evil,” a documentary about a defrocked Catholic priest who raped children in his parish. “An Open Secret” chronicled Hollywood’s long and sordid history of exploiting its most vulnerable performers: child actors. Berg has a clear interest in sex-abuse scandals and a deft hand with telling the stories of people whose lives have been affected by these predators. Her films also offer salient critiques of the institutions and legal systems that allow perpetrators to thrive.
“Prophet’s Prey” opens in the fall in theaters and will also air on Showtime.
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