The Anti-Communist Film Festival wants people like Paul Roland. In 2003, Roland released a film he wrote, produced, directed and stars in. It’s called Exemplum. Shot in black and white, the film tells the story of a priest whose obsession with social media fame leads him into a spiritual spiral. It’s Breaking Bad set in a California parish.
Exemplum was made for $10,000. “There’s plenty of promise here that will warrant keeping an eye on Roland,” reviewer Douglas Davidson wrote, “mostly because there’s a daring here to ask big questions within an institution that’s overgrown past its intended purpose. That institutions far too often seek to preserve themselves rather than the ideas that spawned them and they tend to attract like-minded individuals thereby perpetuating problems instead of remaining malleable and within-purpose. Exemplum isn’t afraid to point out the frailty of community constitution and what it looks like when that’s taken advantage of. This makes Exemplum worth ruminating on; this makes what next big question Roland seeks to explore interesting.”
Critic Christian Toto offered this: “Exemplum offers something meatier for secular and faith-based audiences alike. Its protagonist’s flaws are obvious, but his journey is both fresh and inviting. You haven’t seen a story like this before, and that’s refreshing.”
Roland’s the kind of young filmmaker I want represented at the Anti-Communist Film Festival. The idea for the festival came to me last year. In years of attending film festivals I’d accumulated a list of great anti-communist films—The Lives of Others, Trial, Night People, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Why not show them all over the course of a weekend and throw a big party? I soon found a sponsor in the Victims of Communism Foundation and we were off and running. We’re planning it for the fall and there will be an official announcement soon.
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