Via USA Today:
While many had predicted that racially charged dramas Blindspotting or Monster would take the coveted Grand Jury Prize, it was coming-of-age dramedy The Miseducation of Cameron Post that walked away with the festival’s top honor Saturday night.
Adapted from Emily M. Danforth’s 2012 novel and directed by Desiree Akhavan, Miseducation centers on a teenage girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) who is outed as a lesbian and sent to a gay conversion therapy center by her evangelical aunt. Sasha Lane, Forrest Goodluck and John Gallagher Jr. co-star in the film.”
“The Miseducation of Cameron Post” takes place in the early 1990s and Cameron’s guardians send her to a Christian camp called God’s Promise, which specializes in gay conversion therapy. In much the way “Shock Corridor” examined mental institutions more than half a century ago, “The Miseducation of Cameron Post” is really about the misunderstanding of Cameron Post as parents, doctors, and so on struggle to curb certain desires that ultimately don’t need to be “fixed.” Luckily, no one’s threatening a lobotomy or genital-shock therapy here, although the movie argues that Christian organizations that force nonconforming kids to deny their true nature are no dangerous and harmful.
The first title I ever saw that touched on this so called “Christian Conversion Therapy” was “Later Days”. More recently we have ” Fair Haven”. I have met and heard the stories of what was done to some of these young men . All in the name of “Christian” re-education. Some of the things they were subjected to are banned under the Geneva Conventions! I do not know but I imagine the abuse young women are subjected to are just as harsh.I look forward to seeing this movie. I hope too it gets a distributor that will bring it to the public.
By the way…the last 3 episodes of “Shameless” also dealt with this subject and the kidnappings that go on