Synopsis
Faith, love and civil rights collide on voting day in a small Southern town that hosts a famous performance of the last days of Christ and an infamous gospel drag show.
The Gospel of Eureka
2018 Directed by Michael Palmieri, Donal Mosher
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Pride 2022 Film #17
First-time watchWhile I wanted more from this overall, especially the interviews and not the performance at the end, this offered a really compelling look at what its like to be a liberal Christian in a very liberal Christian town surrounded by very conservative towns. It was heartwarming to see them existing for so long and other parts were deeply sad. Really genuinely a unique documentary.
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Selfishly, I wish this film had been around when I was younger. I think it would have given me a space to think about the ways my religious upbringing and my queerness intersected, and a space where that intersection didn’t always have to be a place of pain. One of the directors said a similar thing in the Q&A afterwards, so I have to imagine it was on their minds while making this.
I was honestly awestruck by how the filmmakers capture the complicated identities their subjects inhabit, and how they see that continuum extending between their subjects. I’m thinking of the juxtaposition of drag queens and passion play actors putting their makeup on, and how a staged resurrection is…
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☆"Just because you're Christian, doesn't really have anything to do with who you're fucking. It has to do with who you're loving."☆
Hey, how could I turn down a second documentary featuring drag queens after learning about the fabulous 50 years of the Imperial Council last night? Public television to the rescue.
It's yet another quality film during Pride Month, the acclaimed collaboration of Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher The Gospel of Eureka, bridging the gaps between faith and orientation in a small Arkansas town. And this is also brought to you by PBS, courtesy of their POV series, which you can watch for free online for a limited time. If you're able, please donate to your local public broadcasting…
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A moving and intoxicating look at America in miniature, girded by the fight over civil rights in the form of a dreaded bathroom bill in the small Arkansas town of the name. The directors flex an exquisite eye for details in performance, pageantry, belief, and labor, as well as a convincingly organic ear for engaging, intimate stories of faith, love, and reclaimed identity. It took almost a decade for Mosher and Palmieri to make a movie that measures up to the intimate pageantry of October Country and in doing so, they've made a superior and far more urgent movie. Just exquisite.
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A good look at being a liberal Christian and believing what the Bible says, but not the bigotry of the church.
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Between this and October Country, the intelligent, discerning empathy of Mosher and Palmieri already puts them in the pantheon of great American documentarians.
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Feeling kind of robbed that I’ve lived by this town for six whole years and I didn’t know there were gospel drag shows happening right under my nose :/
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Eureka Springs is a beautiful little city in Arkansas with a population of 2074 (2017 estimate).
A 7-storey large statue of Jesus was built there in the 1960s and it stands out of the trees among the Ozarks. Every year from May to October, The Great Passion Play is performed nearby, which according to wikipedia makes it the largest-attended outdoor drama in the U.S.
Eureka Springs also hosts four annual LGBTQ+ events called Diversity Weekends, including a Pride week in June. In 2014 it became the first city in Arkansas to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
“The Gospel Of Eureka" finds the town in the midst of a local civil rights vote on a Non-Discrimination Ordinance (Ord. 2223). Tensions… -
America needs more gay Christian couples that own a gospel drag bar in Arkansas
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As an ex-Arkansan, it was like a visit home. These are the people I grew up around, though the freedom and voices of the ones who are out is nothing like I ever experienced in my youth. Here, they have an equal, if not louder, voice than their more conservative neighbors. But, almost every single one of them still identifies as a Christian. At least in this small slice of life, there is more commonality than hate, more humor than tears, and the drag queens are still having the most fun.