This first in a series of animated films at ExtremeBibleStories.com 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.
San Antonio Underground Film Festival, San Antonio, Texas, June 2004
TromaDance Film Festival, January 2003, Park City, Utah
DC Independent Film Festival, February 2003, Washington, DC
Dallas Video Festival, March 2003, Dallas, Texas
Kansas City Filmmaker's Jubilee, April 2003, Kansas City, Missouri
Lost Film Festival 8.0, April 2003, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Arizona Short Film Festival, April 2003, Tempe, Arizona
MediaWave Film Festival, April 2003, Györ, Hungary
Antelope Valley Independent Film Festival, May 2003, Lancaster, California
Light Plays Tricks 6, May 2003, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Philadelphia Video Fest, June 2003, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
San Antonio Underground Film Festival, June 2003, San Antonio, Texas
SoNo Film & Video Festival, August 2003, South Norwalk, Connecticut
Portland International Animation Festival, August 2003, Portland, Oregon
Slamdance Anarchy Online Short Film Competition, September 2003, Los Angeles, California
Bitfilm Festival, September 2003, Hamburg, Germany
Portland International Short Short Film Festival, September 2003, Portland, Oregon
Toronto Online Film Festival, September 2003, Toronto, Canada
Boston Underground Film Festival, September 2003, Boston, Massachusetts
The Warren Report's Distinguishing Features, October 2003, Seattle, Washington
Consolidated Works, November 2003, Seattle, Washington
Nihilist Film Festival , December 2003, Santa Monica, California
San Francisco Independent Film Festival, February 2004, San Francisco, California
Tulsa Overground International Film Festival, August 2004, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Leeds Anime Horror Music Film Festival, October 2004, Leeds, United Kingdom