

The Watchtower in Brooklyn Heights. (Photo via zokuga's flickr)

Truth Be Told is a new feature-length documentary that will have its big screen debut at Cobble Hill Cinemas on March 27th. The theater is less than a mile and a half from the headquarters and central governing body of the Jehovah's Witnesses in Brooklyn Heights, a neighborhood dominated by the religion's followers who have been making a very slow-paced mass exodus from the borough for years.

The documentary aims to "lift the veil on the seemingly benign Jehovah’s Witnesses religion to expose a profit-driven, isolationist culture characterized by fear, totalitarian corporate leadership, intellectual and spiritual intimidation, suspension of critical thinking, failed prophecies, doctrinal inconsistency and improper handling of physical and sexual abuse allegations within the church."

Former Jehovah’s Witnesses candidly discuss growing up inside the religion throughout the film, which was also recently delved into in this piece by Amber Scorah in The Believer. Scorah was raised a Witness, and eventually learned Mandarin Chinese in order to conduct missionary work in China. She writes:

"I had my first Bible student in China. Sooner or later, in our study sessions... I would get to the section in the book with the chapter on Armageddon—with its two-page centerfold illustration of fire falling from the sky and people dying, reeling into the gaping earth. As I began to explain these things, in a new tongue, in a new place, I started to hear what I was saying, for the first time... I started to feel embarrassed."

Scorah, like the former Jehovah's Witnesses in this film, has since left the religion—you can get a glimpse of the world they left here: