By Sandra Hall

November 1, 2022 — 1.30pm

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Gloriavale
(M), 89 minutes

Google Gloriavale and up comes a website describing a Christian paradise on a misty stretch of New Zealand’s West Coast.

Ninety families have come here from all over the world, we’re told, to run a large, thriving dairy farm while leading “a practical Christian life that mirrors life in heaven”. A collection of happy snaps is offered up as proof of the state of contentment prevailing throughout the place. It’s only when you get to the bit that speaks of “complete unity of thought” without “self-will, argument, strife or sin” that alarm bells begin to sound – with good reason.

Documentary makers Noel Smyth and Fergus Grady have worked for three years to help expose the exploitation and human rights violations alleged to be behind Gloriavale’s religious pretensions.

The result is a fascinating record of a protracted legal fight mounted by a brave and tenacious group of people who have managed to extract themselves from a cult which controlled their lives for years.

The film tells the story of a place where women and children are subjected to both sexual and psychological abuse – a place where privacy is denied and labour unpaid, despite a regime which obliges women to work from dawn till dark every day in the farm’s kitchens and laundries, along with having to care for their families, which are large. It’s not unusual for a couple to have 15 children.

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