Inspired by the adventures stories of his youth as well as a “radical” interpretation of Jesus’ “Great Commision” , 26-year-old American John Chau set off to the distant North Sentinel Island to tell the people there–supposedly completely isolated and putatively unfriendly to visitors–of his Savior.  

Directors Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss (Boys State) join Mike to discuss not only what drove John, but who enabled him like “Pastor Bobby” and the evangelizing group All Nations.  And they also explore those who either cautioned him in the moment, like John’s own father, who warned him away from colonial and imperialist thinking. As well as those who, through hard-won insight gained through experience, can provide a critical perspective now, like historian Adam Goodheart and missionary and linguist Dan Everett. 

In the end, McBain’s and Moss’s film suggests, in imagining our encounter with the “untouched” other, we are telling a story about ourselves, and a lost world that never existed but that we persist in pursuing.

"The Mission" is now showing in New York in Los Angeles. It will be opening more widely in the US and Canada over the month of October.

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