Innocent

2008, 40 minutes

Coming of age drama as fifteen year old protagonist moves away from his fundamentalist Christian family and adapts to the ways of contemporary society

Elijah, aged fifteen, lives the restricted life of an Exclusive Brethren family, in which he is largely limited to his own house, home tutored by his mother, Kathryn,and is not allowed to mix with people outside the religious community or use modern technology.When the parents realise that he will not progress adequately unless he attends a mainstream school, they reluctantly enable him to go to the local comprehensive.From his dull and suffocating home environment, where his only likely progression is into the family business, he moves into a bright world of opportunity, but one which is also frightening, where he is subject to much scrutiny and judgement, with new ideologies to comprehend which are diametrically opposed to those already incalcated into him by his background.The story shows how this sudden immersion in a new lifestyle affects Elijah, and how his ideas begin to change so that he questions his own faith, his parents,as well as the beliefs and values of contemporary society.

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