The Mission | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | |
Produced by |
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Cinematography | Thorsten Thielow |
Edited by | Aaron Wickenden |
Music by |
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Production companies |
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Distributed by | Picturehouse |
Release dates |
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Running time | 103 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $58,639 [1] [2] |
The Mission is a 2023 American documentary film directed and produced by Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss. It explores the death of American missionary John Allen Chau, who was killed by arrows during a self-initiated mission involving an indigenous group of the Andaman Islands, the Sentinelese.
It had its world premiere at the 50th Telluride Film Festival on August 31, 2023, and was released on October 13, 2023, by Picturehouse.
In 2018, John Allen Chau, an American missionary, went to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. He then illegally attempted to make contact with one of the world's most isolated indigenous peoples, the uncontacted and legally protected Sentinelese. After bribing fishermen to take him to North Sentinel Island, Chau was killed by them. The film explores his life and death. Levi Davis, a fellow student of Chau's, historian Adam Goodheart, and professor and former missionary Daniel Everett appear in the film. [3]
It had its world premiere at the 50th Telluride Film Festival on August 31, 2023. [4] [5] It also screened at the Camden International Film Festival on September 15, 2023. [6] [7] and the BFI London Film Festival on October 8, 2023. [8] [9] It was released on October 13, 2023, by Picturehouse. [10]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 94% of 51 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.4/10.The website's consensus reads: "The Mission's compassionate and nuanced approach to retelling a real-life tragedy makes this an engrossing exploration of the intersection between delusion and faith." [11] Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 74 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. [12]
North Sentinel Island is one of the Andaman Islands, an Indian archipelago in the Bay of Bengal which also includes South Sentinel Island. It is home to the Sentinelese, an indigenous tribe in voluntary isolation who have defended, often by force, their protected isolation from the outside world. The island is about 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) long and 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) wide, and its area is approximately 60 square kilometres (23 sq mi).
The Sentinelese, also known as the Sentineli and the North Sentinel Islanders, are indigenous people who inhabit North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal in the northeastern Indian Ocean. Designated a particularly vulnerable tribal group and a Scheduled Tribe, they belong to the broader class of Andamanese peoples.
Picturehouse is an American independent entertainment company owned by CEO Bob Berney and COO Jeanne R. Berney. Based in Los Angeles, the company specializes in film marketing and distribution, both in the U.S. and internationally. Its releases have included La Vie en Rose (2007), which earned an Academy Award for Best Actress for Marion Cotillard, Metallica Through the Never (2013), and Adam Wingard's Sundance Film Festival selection The Guest (2014), an Independent Spirit Award nominee starring Dan Stevens.
Madhumala Chattopadhyay is an Indian anthropologist who specializes in the Indigenous peoples of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. In 1991, Chattopadhyay and her colleagues were the first outsiders to make peaceful contact with the Sentinelese people.
John Allen Chau was an American evangelical Christian missionary who was killed by the Sentinelese, a tribe in voluntary isolation, after illegally traveling to North Sentinel Island in an attempt to introduce the tribe to Christianity.
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