Almost Holy

Screenings

2016 Season
Toronto

Gennadiy Mokhnenko has won accolades for his work rescuing abused, drug- and alcohol-addicted kids from the streets of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, but his methods — including abduction and de facto imprisonment — have made him a figure of much controversy. In the year 2000 in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, Pastor Gennadiy Mokhnenko founded the Pilgrim's Republic, a home for abused, drug- and alcohol-addicted street kids who were the unseen victims of the fall of the Soviet Union. While Mokhnenko's mission of mercy is laudable, the pastor's methods have become a subject of much controversy: Mokhnenko himself freely admits to abducting homeless children and essentially imprisoning them to try and break them out of the deadly spiral of street life. Directed by Steve Hoover (Blood Brother) and executive-produced by Terrence Malick, Almost Holy is both an engrossing personal chronicle and a troubling, thought-provoking meditation on the question of means and ends.

Filmmaker(s): 
Steve Hoover
Country of Production: 
Us/Ukraine
Year: 
2015
100m
Genre: 
Documentary