Aimee Semple McPherson (film)

Aimee Semple McPherson (2006) is a feature length dramatic biopic about evangelist "Sister" Aimee Semple McPherson.

Contents

• Aimee semple mcpherson trailer
• Aimee semple mcpherson american masters plus sermon
• Critical response
• References

The cast includes Mimi Michaels, Rance Howard, and Kiera Chaplin. Richard Rossi wrote, directed and also acted in the film. Rossi shot the film with a $300 consumer camcorder. The movie has a jittery, sepia-toned 1920s motif, employing silent film cards and a period look with a contemporary documentary style. The film was made under a special agreement with the Screen Actor's Guild for experimental films with budgets under $75,000.

A group of Evangelicals offered to invest $2 million in the film, but with conditions that the movie did not depict McPherson's divorce or drug overdose and that the actor playing the lead be a Pentecostal Christian. Rossi turned them down. "By saying no to conditions that religious people put on me, I feel I'm actually of more service to God and people because I make an honest film," he said.

Rossi admitted telling his own story allegorically through telling Sister Aimee's. In November, 2001, Rossi, a healing evangelist, received restoration treatment for depression and healing from childhood abuse at Healing for the Nations ministry in Atlanta, Georgia. "I was trying to help everybody else, but I was feeling empty inside," Rossi said. "It was like I was trying to fix the whole world, but I couldn't fix myself. It was a pretty lonely feeling."