Televangelists Threaten Director of New Elmer Gantryish Film

Hollywood, CA, October 22, 2015 (Newswire.com) - "Canaan Land," a feature film telling a contemporary story of an Elmer Gantryish evangelist, is in preproduction. Written by former healing evangelist Richard Rossi, the film project has already stirred up controversy among big names in televangelism, before a single frame of film has been shot.

"Canaan Land is a timely fascinating compelling script that is already getting press due to it's unapologetic look at modern religion," Dann Mead said.  Mead is an actor promoting the film & rumored to be attached.

If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.

Jesus

Rossi performed the role of Elmer Gantry on stage, and on screen he played the real life character David Hutton who inspired the fictional Gantry.  In "Canaan Land," he portrays an evangelist.

"Richard's preacher character is a Gantrylike con man who builds a church and TV ministry. He gets caught up in the business side of evangelism and loses his connection to Christ," Linda Rivas, a spokesperson for the project said.

"Rossi's script exposes faith healing frauds and gimmicks big name preachers have used to con the flock," Tyrone Lee, one of the film's Australian producers said. "He wants to contrast the false side of religion with that which is authentic.  He knows this world from the inside and will reveal the magic tricks."

"Looking back on my years as a healing evangelist, I never did anything fraudulent to fake healings," Rossi said.  "I prayed sincerely wanting God to heal people, and refused to report healings without medical verification.  I was honest when people weren't healed and up front about the suffering we go through.

However, my time in that world allowed me to see shocking tricks some big names do.  They fake miracles, such as a gold dust stunt... a rigged trick they claim is angel feathers and gold flakes falling from Heaven. This hoax helped turn a church in Northern California into the mecca for the charismatic movement," Rossi said.

"The production office has received threats from some of the biggest names in televangelism, because Rossi's film reveals secrets of the tricks famous preachers have used to fool their audiences. The film is not a remake of the 1960 film 'Elmer Gantry.' It is a completely new story based on Rossi's youthful experiences in the world of fundamentalist Pentecostalism," Rivas said.

"I don't understand the anger over this," David Gallagher, an Ohio resident and donor to the film's Go Fund Me page posted on Rossi's Facebook page. "It shows the sincere and the fakes. It's just a movie."

Rossi would not say who threatened his life over the film project, but the Go Fund Me site for "Canaan Land" has a picture of faith healer Benny Hinn with a documented quote from the Los Angeles Times in which Hinn appears to promise healing for money.  "If you come back and make that financial pledge, God will heal your heart tonight," Hinn said.

"There is power in our work when we take a stand," Rossi said.  "Hinn's statement is so clearly wrong and manipulative I must take a stand," Rossi said. 

Followers of Hinn threatened Rossi on his Facebook page that God would get Rossi, smiting him with sickness.  His followers appear to take a cue from Hinn himself who has said those that oppose him would be shot with a "Holy Ghost machine gun."

"I don't want to defame people by name, so my film is fiction and will change names to avoid lawsuits," Rossi said.  "My film has a redemptive ending that I don't want to spoil, in which even the narcissistic evangelist running the con is confronted by the reality of unconditional love."

"The film is not an attack on religion," Rossi said.  "It is my intention in exposing the counterfeit to show the search for that which is pure, lovely, true, and of good report. Overly defensive believers may say we shouldn't expose the counterfeit, but a counterfeit testifies that there is a real anointing, a truth that sets us free."

For more information, visit http://www.gofundme.com/canaanland