Hi everyone, after almost a year on youtube and some 75000 views someone (welcome to the site and thank you for a most relevant question) has asked us if the film is really documentary or an act. I know there's a discussion on youtube and although I actually answered this question on youtube some months ago the discussion continues. Well here's the story:

The film is shot in a studio with an actor, but it  is actually a word by word reenactment of an interview I saw a couple of years ago. So every word, meaning and context is "real" or "true" but performed by an actor. Also I have conducted several interviews with patients and wardens to verify the content further. That's why we chose to call it "True Story" despite it being an actor. 

Furthermore, people complain about the use of "asylum" maybe it's not the preferred word in the US but I thought the definition simply was "psychiatric hospital".  The set design and set dressing is precisely that of a schizophrenic patient in a long term mental hospital in most part of Europe where the patients are locked in but responsible for their own small studio apartments. It varies  a lot of course depending on the patients health and abilities. I think this form exists in the states as well. I'd love to learn about these things  so please tell me if you know more.

Schizophrenia is a very provoking and engaging subject and as such also inspiring to me as an artist. My take is to  create a story where the need and hope of evidence of a god or deity leads a priest to exploit a poor soul at an asylum. I use the format of a horror movie but I sincerely hope I can inject some deeper issues concerning not only the treatment of schizophrenia/mental patients and thoughts and attitudes of our time. I guess no one sets out to make a superficial film and these are the ingredients that makes a film stand out and be remembered. Entertaining - absolutely , I mean it's a horror movie,  but it must at the same time be interesting in terms of the setting, conflict and characters. So while I sincerely hope I do not offend any poor victims of this disease I also hope they can respect my take on it as a filmmaker, maybe this can even help the general debate on the psychiatric treatment. At least a bit. Who knows? When we get further we should definitely have a discussion on exactly how we could achieve this.