BROTHER BORN AGAIN

“For many years I didn't tell anybody that my Jewish brother had gone off and become a Christian,” narrates filmmaker Julia Pimsleur. “I didn't tell anybody that he was in this religious community in Alaska. I would say he was a scientist, or a researcher, or he was in Alaska looking at fish farming.” But the truth was that after wrestling with his faith, Marc Pimsleur, a well-traveled and worldly UC-Berkeley student, left behind his campus lover, widowed mother, yiddishe mama Aunt Beatie and sister Julia, to relocate, heart and soul, to the Farm, a Christ centered commune (regarded by some as a cult) in remote Hoonah, Alaska. Julia is an agnostic, but her sibling's estrangement cuts deeply anyway; as an uncloseted lesbian she knows that the Gospel According to Marc staunchly rejects her lifestyle in a New York City that he declared, at age 23, was full of devils. Now, ten years later, Julia takes her video camera to Hoonah for a reunion with Marc. He turns out to be no wild-eyed Taliban fanatic but a thoughtful, still boyish man for whom Jesus and Scripture hold all the answers and the promise of peace eternal. Amidst the splendor of a Pacific Northwest retreat that has become a second Eden for members of the Farm, Julia re-acquaints herself with a someone who, unbeknownst to his family, once nearly killed himself over his spiritual agonies. And she tries to connect over the emotional and philosophical gulf between them. Non-judgmental and contemplative, BROTHER BORN AGAIN is a revelation of a personal documentary.