Cult leader was ex gay porn andreas star
“Holy Hell,” a documentary by Will Allen, is an account of an American religious cult as told by a filmmaker who was right in the middle of it in the 80s, and whose skills were put in service of glorifying it. Much of it consists of video footage generated by Allen when he was a member of the Buddhafield, a homegrown religion led by a man named Michel.
Imagine you’d purchased a ticket to an evening with a filmmaker, during which he played some of the video footage he created during his time in a cult, and talked about the circumstances and about his overall experience. That’s fine insofar as it goes—it might even be a fun (though perhaps slightly disturbing) late hours out—but it doesn’t really add up to a compelling nonfiction feature, a format that requires some shape, a narrative spine, and a point beyond “here is this strange thing that happened to me once.”
Something seems off from the opening moments of the movie, which juxtapose images of Allen’s stint as Buddhafield’s house director with footage from his childhood as a precocious Steven Spielberg-wannabe, shooting low budget knockoffs of blockbusters like “Ja
LEAD 200 Dimensions for Ethical Leadership: Movies & Media
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In 1985, recent film-school graduate Will Allen found what appeared to be an exciting alternative community in Los Angeles. Always curious about the meaning of life, Allen was lured by a charismatic South American-born guru known as Michel, who seemed qualified to answers his questions. With little hesitation, he joined Buddhafield, a team where love and enlightenment flowed in abundance.
It wasn't until 22 years later that Allen realized he belonged to a cult.
"There’s always someone who brings you or invites you," Allen said. "My sister invited me. It felt very safe having her bring me. When someone you already trust is there, [everyone becomes] your friends instantly. They already knew I was coming. There was a chair waiting with my mention on it."
Allen's film-school stint led to a role as the group's de facto documentarian. Armed with hours of footage of life inside Buddhafield, Allen has made "Holy Hell," a documentary that premiered at the Sundance Clip Festival in January and opens in limited free on Friday. (It will air on CNN later this year.) Combining interviews with former devotees and chilling Buddhafield archives, "Holy Hell" charts the cult's rise in Reagan
Anyone watching "Holy Hell", the documentary about the queer 'guru'/cult leader on CNN?…
It's about the man who led the Buddha Field 'spiritual group' for 20+ years - filmed by a former (male) acolyte. It details the psychological and physical/sexual abuse that he inflicted on various members.
Miss Gay Jim Jones was fond of wearing a speedo on the regular and regularly boned various male followers. I give the dude credit, he has a great eye for male candy.
The background and resultant doc is interesting. Anyone watch?
| by Anonymous | reply 101 | September 1, 2020 8:35 AM |
Kind of a modern day Gurdjieff.
There were a lot of handsome men in his enclave.
I wonder what his background was, before he came to the U.S. Did they say where he was from originally?
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | September 2, 2016 3:47 AM |
I get the feeling that Gurleen knows her way around a caftan or two.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | September 2, 2016 3:54 AM |
No one knows, R1…not even those who have known him a long time, although the belief is South America (Venezuela, to be precise).
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | September 2, 2016 4:03 AM |
That was going
Inside Buddhafield, The Dancer-Founded Sex Cult
At this point, the cult leader's playbook is well-known to the indicate of passé. Take a delusional egomaniac, give him a modicum of control over a flock of misguided disciples, toss in some mystical mumbo-jumbo and invented terminology about enlightenment or some such thing, invent some ritualistic behaviors, pass out some in-group clothing and other appearance markers, sever members' ties to their pasts, employ in some disturbing sexual manipulation, witness an eventual fallout and/or crackdown, and voila: instant entry in the ever-expanding spreadsheet of samey cults.
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The story of Jaime Gomez and the 1980s-founded cult, Buddhafield, follows every single one of those points to a tee. And yet, certain things about it rise out as particularly bizarre, exploitative, over-the-top, and scornful of even the pretense of existing for some reason other than the deification and gratification of Michel, Andreas, the Mentor, or most recently Reyji ("god-king"), as Gomez has variously called himself over the decades.
As sites appreciate Vanity Fair and Austin Monthly outline, Gomez is a Venezuelan-born dancer who was big on pagea