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Extreme Bible Stories "Fucking hilarious!"
Jonathan Lees, Program Director, 2003 TromaDance Film Festival

"I really howled all the way thru!"
Ben Edward Akerley, author of "The X-Rated Bible"

 Exploring the bloody side of the "Good Book"



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Episode 1: "Don't dis Elisha!"

Official Selection of:
2003 TromaDance Film Festival, Jan 22-23, Park City, Utah
2003 DC Independent Film Festival, Feb 27-March 6, Washington, DC
2003 Dallas Video Festival, March 19-23, Dallas, Texas
2003 Kansas City Filmmaker's Jubilee, April 1-6, Kansas City, Missouri
Lost Film Festival 8.0, April 10-13, West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
2003 Arizona Short Film Festival, April 19, Tempe, Arizona
2003 MediaWave Film Festival, April 25-May 3, Györ, Hungary
2003 Antelope Valley Independent Film Festival, May 9-11, Lancaster, California
Light Plays Tricks 6, May 23-25, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
2003 Philadelphia Video Fest, June 13-14, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
2003 San Antonio Underground Film Festival, June 20-22, San Antonio, Texas
2003 SoNo Film & Video Festival, August 2-3, South Norwalk, Connecticut
Portland International Animation Festival, August 24-28, Portland, Oregon
Slamdance Anarchy Online Short Film Competition, September, Los Angeles, California
Bitfilm Festival, September 21-23, Hamburg, Germany
Portland International Short Short Film Festival, September 26-27, Portland, Oregon
2003 Toronto Online Film Festival, September 15-20, Toronto, Canada
2003 Boston Underground Film Festival, September 26-October 4, Boston, Massachusetts
The Warren Report's   Distinguishing Features, Oct 21, 2003, Seattle, Washington
Consolidated Works, November 7-9, 2003, Seattle, Washington
2003 Nihilist Film Festival, December 14, Santa Monica, California
2004 San Francisco Independent Film Festival, February 5-15, San Francisco, California
Tulsa Overground International Film Festival, August 2004, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Leeds Anime Horror Music Film Festival, October 2004, Leeds, United Kingdom

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Episode 2: Samson stars in "My Big Phat Philistine Wedding"
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Director's Statement:

This series of animated films is a challenge and a rebuke to the religious extremists in America who use the Bible to justify censorship, intolerance, and hate. 

When I see such people installed in powerful government positions where they can impose their stone-age “morality” on the rest of us, I feel personally threatened and determined to fight back by exposing the bloody underbelly of their "Good Book". 

The Extreme Bible Stories series will reveal a few of the many shocking stories of God-approved slaughter and rape, with the goal of provoking the viewer to question the widely-held belief that the Bible should be used as a guide to moral living. 

I find animation particularly well-suited for telling these stories, with their exotic settings, miraculous interventions, larger-than-life characters and the black-or-white classification of people and events as either Good or Evil. 

I also exploit the audience's expectation that animations, especially of Bible stories, are harmless morality tales suitable for children.  The animations may start out safely enough, leavened with some irreverent humor, but the audience's expectations are then rudely violated by unflinching depictions of God-ordered slaughter, presented in literal, gory detail. 

My goal is that this shocking inversion of the stereotypical children's Bible story will, after the initial responses of dismay and disbelief, motivate the fundamentalist viewer to get their Bible out and read the story in an attempt to refute my telling of it.  When they instead find that I've presented a literal, unexpurgated version of the story, they will perhaps reevaluate their belief in the Bible as the ultimate source of morality.


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