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HELLBOUND: Abbotsford filmmaker asks questions about hell, films documentary locally

Where did our current vision of hell come from, and is it possible we’ve got it wrong? Those are questions that Abbotsford filmmaker Kevin Miller is asking in his new feature-length documentary Hellbound, which begins filming in Abbotsford next week.
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Abbotsford filmmaker Kevin Miller is producing a documentary about hell

Where did our current vision of hell come from, and is it possible we’ve got it wrong?

Those are questions that Abbotsford filmmaker Kevin Miller is asking in his new feature-length documentary Hellbound, which begins filming in Abbotsford next week.

“I’m eager to get to the bottom of that interpretation process,” said Miller. “In other words, why are we so bound to the idea of hell?”

Hell is typically viewed as eternal torment, both in the biblical version and in popular culture, said Miller, who is a Christian.

“Just because it’s a dominant view doesn’t mean it’s the best,” he argued. “We are looking at the issue of hell often from one perspective, and we have to ask ourselves ‘Who is to say that our perspective is the correct one?’”

In the documentary, which is slated to come out in late 2012, Miller will provide numerous opinions by interviewing hard-core Christians, Universalists and atheists.

Miller has already ventured to Copenhagen, Denmark to interview the music community at a death metal festival.

He noted that they had transformed hell from “a place you want to avoid after you die into a focal point for building community and identity.”

“For them, hell isn’t about punishment; it’s about freedom.”

Next, he’ll be talking to personalities from across the Lower Mainland, including Abbotsford author Brad Jersak and University of the Fraser Valley professor Ron Dart.

Inspired by the recent “fever pitch” the topic has created both in and outside the church, Miller hopes the documentary will help people come away with a “freedom to explore competing views of God and different views of hell.”

While he suspects he will upset some people with the film, his aim is to approach the topic in a conversational tone – not bait or antagonize anyone.

Miller has two other feature documentaries coming out later this year: spOILed, which challenges the notion that we are addicted to fossil fuels, and Sex+Money, which examines the problem of the sex trafficking of children in America.