Showtime to Air Kidnapped for Christ, Exposé of Antigay Reform School

Kidnapped for Christ, the award-winning documentary about young people sent against their will to an evangelical Christian reform school, some of them simply for being gay, will make its TV premiere on Showtime Thursday night.

The film profiles students at Escuela Caribe in the Dominican Republic, including David, a 17-year-old honor student from Colorado, sent to the school shortly after coming out to his parents; Beth, a 15-year-old from Michigan suffering from debilitating panic attacks; and Tai, a 16-year-old Haitian-American girl from Boston experimenting with drugs to cope with childhood trauma.

Director Kate Logan initially believed Escuela Caribe was helping struggling young people and intended to make a film showing the Christian boarding school in a positive light, so the school granted her extensive access, even allowing her to live on campus for a summer. But after she witnessed the abusive treatment the students received, she made a very different film, and the experience undermined her belief in evangelical Christianity. Click here to read Logan’s 2013 interview with The Advocate about the film and her spiritual journey.

Kidnapped for Christ has been a hit at film festivals; it won the Special Jury Award at this year’s Nashville Film Festival and the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 2014 Slamdance Film Festival. It is continuing to screen at festivals around the nation.

The Showtime premiere will be at 7:30 p.m. Eastern/Pacific, and the network will screen the documentary several more times in July and August. Check here for times, and find more information at the film’s official site. And watch a trailer below.