In the American heartland, six survivors of childhood sexual abuse by Catholic priests become a makeshift family as they collaborate to create staged scenes depicting rituals of power in the church.
Six midwestern men—all survivors of childhood sexual assault at the hands of Catholic priests and clergy—come together to direct a drama therapy-inspired experiment designed to collectively work through their trauma. As part of a radically collaborative filmmaking process, they create fictional scenes based on memories, dreams and experiences, meant to explore the church rituals, culture and hierarchies that enabled silence around their abuse. In the face of a failed legal system, we watch these men reclaim the spaces that allowed their assault, revealing the possibility for catharsis and redemption through a new-found fraternity. As one of the men says, “SPOTLIGHT was about trying to get in from the outside. In our film, we’re trying to get out.