Six midwestern men all survivors of childhood sexual assault at the hands of Catholic priests and clergy come together to direct a drama therapy-inspired experiment designed to collectively work through their trauma. As part of a radically collaborative filmmaking process, they create fictional scenes based on memories, dreams and experiences, meant to explore the church rituals, culture and hierarchies that enabled silence around their abuse. In the face of a failed legal sy... (Full plot summary below)
Enjoy FREE movies and series with your Prime (USA) subscription or when you start a 30-day free trial!
Six midwestern men all survivors of childhood sexual assault at the hands of Catholic priests and clergy come together to direct a drama therapy-inspired experiment designed to collectively work through their trauma. As part of a radically collaborative filmmaking process, they create fictional scenes based on memories, dreams and experiences, meant to explore the church rituals, culture and hierarchies that enabled silence around their abuse. In the face of a failed legal system, we watch these men reclaim the spaces that allowed their assault, revealing the possibility for catharsis and redemption through a new-found fraternity.
Leave your thoughts about Procession.
| Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleObservational documentaries are by nature intrusive, but Procession, miraculously, never feels that way — you sense humane engagement, not imposition. |
| VoxAlissa WilkinsonIn letting them retell those stories their way, and asking us to watch, Procession dares its audience to not look away. It calls us, in other words, to join the healing community, not just with vague aspirations but with our actual eyes. To play our roles as audience members and then take what we learn and bring it to others. |
| The Observer (UK)Simran HansWhat could have been a disaster in the hands of a less sensitive film-maker ends up an extraordinary feat of care, collaboration and creativity. |
| RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzThis is an unrelentingly gripping and often disturbing film that dares to visualize (with taste and restraint) some of the vilest behavior the species is capable of, and take full measure of the psychic damage it inflicts on innocent victims. |
| VarietyGuy LodgeProcession is, in its own elegant and uneasy way, an inspiring film, idealistically invested in cinema itself as a medium for confession, confrontation and self-expression, not least when Greene hands over the camera to other filmmakers in need of its power. |
| Paste MagazineDom SinacolaProcession feels like the surest execution of Greene’s voice. |
| TheWrapTodd GilchristGreene’s film explores not just the ability of art to repair emotional and sometimes physical injuries but also the resiliency of the human spirit and the solidarity of a group of individuals collaborating to provide comfort for themselves and each other through shared, unimaginable pain. |
| The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyGreene, whose earliest documentaries were rooted in the cinéma vérité tradition and its portraits of ordinary American lives, has crafted a poignant group portrait with something to say about the crossed wires of pain and memory. |
| Rolling StoneDavid FearIt’s a harrowing documentary, to be sure, but also healing in a way that doesn’t go for easy emotional button-pushing, or play down the white-knuckle struggle they endure while processing all of it. |
| LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenGreene seems to have produced a respectful account of the experiment, allowing these men to find some form of catharsis without exploiting them. |
