Mormon cinema usually refers to films with themes relevant to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The term has also been used to refer to films that do not necessarily reflect Mormon themes but have been made by Mormon filmmakers. Films within the realm of Mormon cinema may be distinguished from institutional films produced by the LDS Church, such as Legacy and Testaments, which are made for instructional or proselyting purposes and are non-commercial. Mormon cinema is produced mainly for the purposes of entertainment and potential financial success.
Music has had a long history in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from the days in Kirtland, Nauvoo, and the settlement of the West, to the present day. In the early days of the Church, stripped-down Latter-Day Saint folk music, which could be sung without accompaniment due to the lack of instruments in Utah, was popular. In the 19th century, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was created and began touring, while musicians began writing devotional and praise music with a Latter-Day Saint influence, paralleling the success of Christian Contemporary Music. Several organizations have existed and do exist to promote these artists, such as Deseret Book and the now-defunct Faith-centered Music Association. Starting in the late 20th century and to the present day, Latter-Day Saints have been increasingly involved in modern popular music in America and elsewhere in the World.
Latter Day Saints and Mormons have been portrayed in popular media many times. These portrayals often emphasize controversy such as polygamy or myths about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other branches of the Latter Day Saint movement.
World of Wonder Productions is an American production company founded in 1991 by filmmakers Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey. Based in Los Angeles, California, the company specializes in documentary television and film productions with a key focus on LGBTQ topics. Together, Bailey and Barbato have produced programming through World of Wonder for HBO, Bravo, HGTV, Showtime, the BBC, Netflix, MTV and VH1, with credits including the Million Dollar Listing docuseries, RuPaul's Drag Race, and the documentary films Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures (2016) and The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2000).
Daniel Coulter Reynolds is an American singer and songwriter. He is the lead vocalist of the pop rock band Imagine Dragons. Reynolds also released an EP in 2011, titled Egyptian – EP, as a duo with his former wife Aja Volkman under the moniker Egyptian. He is a recipient of the Songwriters Hall of Fame Hal David Starlight Award.
Justin Drew Tranter is an American songwriter, singer, and activist. Frequently co-writing with Julia Michaels, Tranter has written songs for artists such as Britney Spears, Gwen Stefani, Linkin Park, Kelly Clarkson, Sara Bareilles, Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber, DNCE, Citizen Queen, Kesha, Imagine Dragons, Fifth Harmony, 5 Seconds of Summer, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga, RAYE, Bea Miller, Demi Lovato, Dua Lipa, Måneskin, and Fall Out Boy. From 2004 to 2014, Tranter was the lead singer of Semi Precious Weapons, a rock band based in New York. Since February 2017, they have been a board member of GLAAD, an organization that promotes LGBT acceptance in the entertainment and news industries. Tranter's songs have garnered over 50 million single sales and 40 billion streams on Spotify and YouTube as of May 2021.
Imagine Dragons is an American pop rock band based in Las Vegas, Nevada, consisting of lead singer Dan Reynolds, guitarist Wayne Sermon, bassist Ben McKee and drummer Daniel Platzman. The band first gained exposure with the release of their single "It's Time", followed by their award-winning debut studio album Night Visions (2012), which resulted in the chart-topping singles "Radioactive" and "Demons". Rolling Stone named "Radioactive", which held the record for most weeks charted on the Billboard Hot 100, the "biggest rock hit of the year". MTV called them "the year's biggest breakout band", and Billboard named them their "Breakthrough Band of 2013" and "Biggest Band of 2017", and placed them at the top of their "Year in Rock" rankings for 2013, 2017, and 2018. Imagine Dragons topped the Billboard Year-End "Top Artists – Duo/Group" category in 2018.
David France is an American investigative reporter, non-fiction author, and filmmaker. He is a former Newsweek senior editor, and has published in New York magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, GQ, and others. France, who is gay, is best known for his investigative journalism on LGBTQ topics.
Den Tolmor is a Moldova-born American film producer, director, and writer, whose work includes feature films, television series, and documentaries. Tolmor is best known for producing Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom, a 2015 documentary film about the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine in the winter of 2013 and 2014, which earned him an Oscar Nomination for Best Documentary Feature and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination in the Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking category in 2016. Throughout his career, Tolmor has frequently collaborated with Oscar-nominated Israeli-American director Evgeny Afineevsky, also producing the 2017 documentary film Cries from Syria about the Syrian civil war. Narrated by Helen Mirren, the film was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival where it premiered in 2017 and was acquired by HBO. Tolmor produced Francesco, a 2020 documentary film about Pope Francis that tells the story of hope inside the darkness of our times. Righetto, Tolmor's most recent feature film, entered pre-production in Italy in 2020.
Ryan White is a documentary producer and director best known for his Netflix documentary film Pamela, a love story, Amazon Prime's Good Night Oppy, which won five Critics Choice Awards including Best Documentary and Best Director, and his Emmy-nominated Netflix series The Keepers. White's previous films include the HBO movie The Case Against 8, which won Sundance's Directing Award and was nominated for two Emmys, the documentary film Ask Dr. Ruth, and Coded, which was shortlisted for the Academy Award.
In society at large, LGBT individuals, especially youth, are at a higher risk of depression, anxiety, and suicide. Though causes of mental health risk are complex, one oft cited reason for these higher risks is minority stress stemming from societal anti-LGBT biases and stigma, rejection, and internalized homophobia. A 2016 empirical study found a correlation between the percentage of members of Mormonism's largest denomination, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in a U.S. state and the suicide rates of that state, stating the reason was due to the church's stance on same-sex sexual relations. However, the study could not examine what percentages of the deaths were LGBT persons or the percentage that were Latter-day Saints. A 2002 research report found a negative correlation in suicide between LDS Church youth members and nonmember youth in Utah, finding higher levels of religiosity appear to be inversely associated with suicide, though the study does not take into account sexual orientation or gender identity and expression.
Although the historical record is often scarce, evidence points to LGBT individuals having existed in the Mormon community since its beginnings, and estimates of the number of LGBT former and current Mormons range from 4 to 10% of the total membership of the LDS Church. However, it wasn't until the late 1950s that top LDS leaders began regularly discussing LGBT people in public addresses. Since the 1970s a greater number of LGBT individuals with Mormon connections have received media coverage.
Mama Dragons is a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization that supports, educates, and empowers mothers of LGBTQ children. Since 2013, it has grown from just a handful of moms to an organization that now supports over 9,000+ mothers. Mama Dragons' focus is on providing online support groups and educational programs where mothers can learn and connect with other Mama Dragons traveling similar paths as they learn accepting and affirming parenting practices that can help prevent LGBTQ youth suicide, depression, and homelessness.
Aaron I. Butler is an American film and television editor and producer.
This is a timeline of LGBT Mormon history in the 2020s, part of a series of timelines consisting of events, publications, and speeches about LGBTQ+ individuals, topics around sexual orientation and gender minorities, and the community of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Welcome to Chechnya is a 2020 documentary film by American reporter, author and documentarian David France. The film centers on the anti-gay purges in Chechnya of the late 2010s, filming LGBT Chechen refugees using hidden cameras as they made their way out of Russia through a network of safehouses aided by activists.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been involved with many pieces of legislation relating to LGBT people and their rights. These include playing an important role in defeating same-sex marriage legalization in Hawaii, Alaska, Nebraska, Nevada, California, and Utah. The topic of same-sex marriage has been one of the church's foremost public concerns since 1993. Leaders have stated that it will become involved in political matters if it perceives that there is a moral issue at stake and wields considerable influence on a national level. Over a dozen members of the US congress had membership in the church in the early 2000s. About 80% of Utah state lawmakers identied as Mormon at that time as well. The church's political involvement around LGBT rights has long been a source of controversy both within and outside the church. It's also been a significant cause of disagreement and disaffection by members.
This is a timeline of LGBT Mormon history in the 2010s, part of a series of timelines consisting of events, publications, and speeches about LGBTQ+ individuals, topics around sexual orientation and gender minorities, and the community of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
