Think You’d Never Be a Cult Member or Get Manipulated? ‘Father’s House’ Wants You to Think Again.

Father’s House (Faderhuset) not only charted an unusual path to explore mechanisms of control in a hybrid documentary about the Danish Christian sect Faderhuset, or “Father’s House.” It also aims to make you think about manipulation in a broader sense that goes well beyond the experience of how this specific cult evolved in the 1990s into a tightly controlled community held together by faith, manipulation and abuse.

The process saw former cult members collaborate with such lauded actors as Trine Dyrholm (The Girl With the Needle, Poison), David Dencik (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, No Time to Die), Laura Kronborg Kjær (The Sommerdahl Murders, The Girl From Athens) and Emma Sehested Høeg (Killjoy, The Stranger). The film features reenactments, with former members helping the actors bring to life their real-life experiences, exchanges between them and former cult insiders sharing their insights on their past.

Dyrholm plays Ruth, who led the sect throughout the 1990s before Father’s House ended as a religious congregation in 2013, with leaders and members moving abroad. Dencik portrays former sect member Jerry Jensen. The writers and directors behind the unusual cinematic experience, which will hit Danish theaters later this month, are Adam Nielsen (The Letter Room, The Investigation), Andreas Koefoed (The Lost Leonardo, Music for Black Pigeons) and Eva Mulvad (The Good Life, Enemies of Happiness). DR Sales (Mr Nobody Against Putin) is handling sales.

The movie’s world premiere is taking place on Monday evening in the Doc@PÖFF International Competition program of the 30th edition of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) in Estonia.

Actress Dyrholm, former cult member Jensen and director Mulvad talked to THR about the experimental process of creating Father’s House, why people in sects deserve more respect, and why none of us may be safe from manipulation and control.

“It was a joint exploration [of behavior] in all scenes,” Dyrholm tells THR about stepping into the role of the cult leader. “That was the experiment. For me, it was not about the character but more about the manipulation, the situations, the mechanisms. And I entered this project with huge respect for the three people who have been living these scenes for real. So it was not about acting. It was about exploring the situation that had been written.”

She continues: “I really feel that this was a collaborative situation. Of course, I’m an actress, but I’m also a human being so interested in how it was to be there. There is so much respect that I have for [Jerry and the two other former cult members]. They are so vulnerable, standing there with their story, but doing it for the greater cause, and I think that’s very important with this film. The greater cause is how we can open a window into this hidden world of a religious community that is abusive.”

Key to the film was safeguarding all the collaborators and their mental health. “This is not just a game; it’s somebody’s life. So, you need to protect people,” Mulvad tells THR. “But it’s also wrong in a way to overprotect. There’s a certain [approach] among social workers I meet to try to take over somebody else’s life, and that’s also a power demonstration.”

She continues discussing how there is responsibility shared by everyone in the creative process. “I’m very used to this collaboration, which is a negotiation,” she explains. “It’s about trust, but it’s also about being very transparent. What are we doing? How do you feel about it? That said, this form is different from regular documentaries. You reenact a very painful experience that Jerry and [two other former Father’s House members] had. So, of course, there is intensity at the moment where we create a new experience together that’s different from filming everyday life.”

About Jerry, she says: “We’d known each other for many years when we started shooting, and we’d been discussing and writing the scenes together. And we had discussed things in detail. We also had a psychologist for safety in case this recreated some kind of trauma.”

Jerry lauds the collaborative atmosphere and spirit throughout the process, telling THR: “I feel that I was taken very good care of throughout the whole process. So I felt safe all the way.”

For him and the filmmakers, a key sentiment of Father’s House was also key. “It was very important for me not to be shown as a victim,” Jerry highlights. “It was important for me to take responsibility for my actions.”

He also didn’t want to be looked down on. “Sectarian films, especially in documentary cinema, often [allow you to] sit on your sofa and think, ‘Ah, thank God, it’s not me! That person must be a little bit less clever than me to accept what has happened to them,'” Mulvad argues. “We needed to go into it from a different angle. And in that different angle, [Jerry and the others] would not be portrayed as a victim.”

Jerry also wanted to portray his experience in the sect in all its complexity. “We talked about how we also, and it’s strange to say, but we also sometimes had good times in the Father’s House,” he tells THR. “Everything is not black and white, good and evil. It’s very complex.”

Dyrholm echoes that. “I don’t have any answers, but there was definitely a lot of love bombing going on,” she says about the cult leader she portrays. “But of course, she was also a loving person, and we try to balance both sides. It’s not only evil or only love, it’s kind of mixed in a very, very manipulative way. That’s why it works.”

Asked about her hopes for the film, the actress tells THR that it can help us all understand manipulation. “The film is really a layered document of human nature in the most brutal [form],” Dyrholm says. “I hope it will make a huge impact on the audience, but also take the discussions further. How can we help young people, especially help them out of these communities?”

But the creators also see Father’s House as an inspiration to think about all sorts of forms of control. “We need to bring it to the more universal level of being about manipulation,” Mulvad shares. “Because it is not only about this religious cult. We wanted to understand how it could happen. It is about those mechanisms that make really clever people [hand] over the power over their life to somebody else. It doesn’t come from one day to the other. It’s a very slow process, and that process has its own dramaturgy.”

And she emphasizes: “In this extreme group, it’s more visible there. But it’s the same shit that is happening in families that are dysfunctional, in workplaces, when you go to the bank and they try to sell you something crazy that you should pay for, but they don’t say it directly. I mean it’s everywhere. It’s also on the internet all the time. We must understand: You’re not more clever. You can also be hit by this. So, this is a universal story and not just about this particular cult.”

Dyrholm echoes that. “Fo me, it’s a big film,” she tells THR. “It’s a universal film. It’s a very important film. And I’m just very proud of being part of telling these people’s story.”