Friday, May 7, 11:30 AM, Charles Theatre 2

Sunday, May 9, 2:30 PM, Charles Theatre 3

Director: David Petersen

Cast: Pastor Bobby Perkins, Gail Perkins, JoAnn Perkins

Country: U.S.
Year: 2003
Running Time: 87 minutes
Format: Beta SP

In the big think policy world of national politics, the ongoing debate about faith-based programs seems forced and awkward. While that debate evolves, Director David Peterson and Producer Mridu Chandra have chosen to explore religion at work on the most fundamental street level, as it has been practiced for many years in hundreds of our cities' neighborhoods. Having scouted hundreds of small storefront churches in NYC and Washington, DC, they settled on one in a failed store at the corner of First Street and Randolph Place NW in the District. World Missions for Christ Church International is run by a recovering crack addict, Pastor Bobby Perkins, his wife, Gail S Perkins, and his sister, JoAnn Perkins. It is a community operation, with little outside help.

To this congregation of about 35 regulars, religion is a specific, concrete force in their daily lives. At one point during a service they generously scrape together $200 so Sister Darlene Duncan can get her car fixed and keep her job. Neither of the filmmakers are evangelicals, but they became close enough to this congregation to make a beautifully intimate film.

Through this film, Pastor Perkins and his church community welcome all of us, believer or not, into their world with unselfconscious warmth. For many, Let the Church Say Amen will be a rare glimpse of a world the public debate around us hardly recognizes.

-- Jed Dietz

David Peterson has had his films exhibited at numerous international museums and festivals, including The Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Hirshhorn Museum, The National Gallery of Art, the Museum of American History, and The Library of Congress. His Academy Award nominated documentary Fine Food, Fine Pastries, Open 6 to 9, received first place prizes in numerous international film festivals and won an Emmy. His PBS documentary If You Lived Here You Would Be Home Now premiered at The National Gallery of Art and was an Independent Spirit Award Nominee. His short dramatic film Rain: Scenes, won a 1993 Rosebud Festival Award; and he currently produces for the new national PBS arts program Egg, presented by WNET in New York.