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Hoover Street Revival

Type: Feature
Released: 2003
Length: 100 min.
Directed by: Sophie Fiennes

Themes

Status

  • Shown in festivals
  • Available on DVD/VHS
  • Broadcast worldwide

Synopsis:

An observational piece, set in and around a buzzy gospel church in Watts, one of the most troubled districts in Los Angeles, Hoover Street Revival is a documentary about black faith in a hard place. Vérité-style shots of local lives, jobs, houses, bathrooms, kids and kitchen sinks, are imaginatively bled into footage of the charismatic pastor, Bishop Noel Jones, whose sermons combine humour, metaphysics, acute social observation and practical advice on how to survive in one of the toughest ghettos in Los Angeles. This is a man who turns a neat profit from packaging and selling his emotive sermons, but the need of his parishioners to believe in him is strangely moving.


Awards

Nominated for Best British Documentary award at the 2003 BIFA awards

Festivals

Locarno Festival, 2002
Edinburgh Film Festival, 2002.

Synopsis:
An observational piece, set in and around a buzzy gospel church in Watts, one of the most troubled districts in Los Angeles, Hoover Street Revival is a documentary about black faith in a hard place. Vérité-style shots of local lives, jobs, houses, bathrooms, kids and kitchen sinks, are imaginatively bled into footage of the charismatic pastor, Bishop Noel Jones, whose sermons combine humour, metaphysics, acute social observation and practical advice on how to survive in one of the toughest ghettos in Los Angeles. This is a man who turns a neat profit from packaging and selling his emotive sermons, but the need of his parishioners to believe in him is strangely moving.
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