Filmmaker Statement

The story of Witness is very personal to me as I was raised as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Like Olivia, when I was 16, I was deemed “bad association” for becoming too close with some friends at school. Over the next few months, I became completely isolated from the community I was raised in. Friends who I’d known my whole life stopped talking to me. I turned to the world where I found the support I longed for. After a long battle I was able to get out. Jehovah’s Witnesses teach you to fear the world and isolate themselves from the rest of it. They ruin families, protect pedophiles, and promote hate. The goal of Witness is too shed light on their tactics and show the truth of the organization. I hope to help those in the organization to question their beliefs, but also to show that there is so much more to the world out there. Even when we feel all alone, there’s always someone you can turn to.