T.D. Jakes promotes upcoming film

ATLANTA, Ga. — Bishop T.D. Jakes, pastor of the Potter’s House in Dallas, is promoting the fall release of his first movie “Woman, Thou Art Loosed: The Movie” by conducting pre-screenings across the country.

The movie, which Oprah is expected to feature during a September show, is about a story of one young woman’s hard road from sexual abuse victim to redemption.

The first screening came June 29, to a group of area pastors, child advocacy workers, and Christian retailers from the Christian Booksellers Association meeting Atlanta. Jakes is hoping the movie will become a relevant tool for churches and organizations to begin to treat the runaway problem of childhood sexual abuse. One of every three girls and every four boys has suffered sexual abuse by the time they reach age 18.

“More than 60 percent of women in prison were abused as children by people they should have been able to trust,” said Jakes, a prolific author, musician, and playwright. His Woman, Thou Art Loosed series includes works from early Sunday School classes, to seminars, record-breaking stadium events, the stage play, a Grammy-nominated CD, and now the movie. They are based on the counseling sessions that he and his wife have held with church members.

The movie is scheduled to open in theaters the first of October, which is National Awareness Month for Domestic Violence. The distributor is Dallas-based Magnolia Pictures.

“Woman, Thou Art Loosed: The Movie” won the Santa Barbara Independent Film Festival this spring and has been featured twice in Variety magazine. Hollywood’s Reuben Cannon (Roots, The Color Purple) produced and Michael Schultz (Boston Public, LA Law) directed the film, which stars Kimberly Elise (John Q, Beloved) and Loretta Devine (Boston Public, Waiting to Exhale).

“Jesus is the answer, but the church often fails to ask the right questions,” Jakes in a news release. “Life without Jesus is raw and hard, extremely depressing. But if our portrait of the problem is unbelievable, audiences will dismiss us. We’ll lose our message and our ability to touch lives.”

Jakes plays himself in the movie as a visiting pastor whose church revival draws Michelle and the characters in her life: her mother’s boyfriend who stole her childhood, the mother who denied the abuse, her aunt, her pimp, a friend from prison—and the childhood friend, now a man, who still believes in her. The storyline leads to prison where Jakes visits Michelle on death row.

In addition to the film’s mainstream audiences, many churches are expected to use the film to open a dialogue on sexual abuse among its members. Follow-up materials, in collaboration with the American Association of Christian Counselors, will be available at wtalmovie.com

Published by Keener Communications Group, September 2004

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