Courageous Pioneers of Faith Portrayed in ‘The Hopeful’

After a successful season in US cinemas, the inspirational faith-based film The Hopeful has reached Australian shores.

The film takes Audiences back to 19th century New England, USA, where “courage, hope, war and true love collide in a tale of epic proportions”. It tells the remarkable story of evangelist William Miller, his zeal for the second coming of Jesus, and of one of his followers, Ellen Harmon (White), who went on to co-found the Seventh Day Adventist Church.

Emmy-winning director Kyle Portbury, from Newcastle, Australia was tasked to bring the story to life. He said The Hopeful is a universal story about failure, hope in the face of adversity and disillusionment, and love.

In an interview with Rhema Newcastle’s Aaron and Chloe, Kyle explained that he never intended to tell a story about his own Adventist faith, but rather, he fell in love with the story and its strong characters.

“When you really dig into who these people were, some of the things that they did and the wrestles and the struggles they had, I went, ‘Oh, these are people I can relate to’”,” he said. “So regardless of whether that’s in an Adventist flavour or a Baptist flavour, a Methodist flavour or an evangelical flavour, it doesn’t really matter. You see people who are struggling and wrestling with big ideas and how they as people relate to spirituality and their faith and God and Christ and Holy Spirit and how all that works in with who you are as a person who still has to operate as part of the wider community around them.”

The film opened in cinemas on October 17, and had a strong opening weekend at the box office achieving #3 of 14 new releases in NZ and #5 of 14 new releases in Australia.

Find out where to view it and more about the film on The Hopeful movie website.