2023-07-24 04:45:00
Sound of Freedom (The sound of freedom), an American film-complaint regarding the global trafficking of minors, exceeded this Thursday 100 million dollars (90 million euros), raised since its premiere on July 4. This Sunday, the mark had exceeded 110 million. While waiting for the data that the Barbie and Oppenheimer event-premieres show in their first weekend, this small film, with a budget of just 14 million dollars, does not stop breaking records. In its first nine days alone, four million people had seen it. And it has achieved it by screening only in theaters in the United States, which places it by far as the most watched film not associated with a major studio in the last three years in this country, since March 2020, when the pandemic began, according to ComScore measurement data.
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Directed by the Mexican Alejandro Monteverde, Sound of Freedom tells the true story of Tim Ballard, a former agent of the US Government who decides to leave for Colombia with the mission of freeing two Honduran brothers. Along the way, he rescues fifty children from the clutches of the mafias. The film presents Ballard as a lone hero, a version refuted with data by some media such as Vicewho dedicated an extensive report a couple of years ago.
Incidentally, the film, which aspires to be a social phenomenon, has been placed at the epicenter of cultural and even political conversation in the United States, due to its theme, the promotion that its protagonist, Jim Caviezel, has made of it, and the reactions it has aroused. Caviezel has repeatedly cited QAnon in these weeks, a complex movement born on the internet five years ago where there is room for almost all possible conspiracy theories that defend the right, support Trump and sink the image of the Democrats. Also, the theories that associate certain liberal elites with the trafficking of minors.
The Sound of Freedom distributor is called Angel Studios and is focused on Christian and conservative audiovisuals; In fact, they have a successful series to their credit, The Chosen (The chosen ones), centered on the figure of Jesus Christ, financed by donors and which has more than 500 million views (in Spain on Movistar+). And from Angel they have come out to defend that their today successful feature film was over since 2018 and that QAnon is not behind it. In fact, its producer (as well as an actor and singer), the Mexican ultra-Catholic conservative Eduardo Verástegui, has acknowledged that neither Disney nor 20th Century Fox, with whom they had a prior agreement, wanted it in 2019, and that both Amazon and Netflix also let it pass.
Angel Studios took advantage of the occasion and got hold of it through a crowdfunding round in which some 7,000 people participated, contributing a total of five million euros. Now, the distributor, the last link in the chain and who wants to get rid of the conspiracy labels, has released a long post on her blog, called The truth behind the movie where they tell how it was created, who Ballard is and which of the moments that are reflected in the work are pure cinematographic fiction. And they insist in their statements that “everyone who has seen it will know that it has nothing to do with politics or conspiracies, but that it is just a great story well told.”
The controversial figure of Verástegui has also set the tone in which it has been received. Related to Vox and friend of its leader, Santiago Abascal, As he reveals on his networks, yes, like the ultra-Hungarian Viktor Orbán, he is a practicing Catholic who defends chastity before marriage. He has a project in Los Angeles once morest abortion, Mantle of Guadalupe, and it actively belongs to another that encourages men to pray in public places reserved for them, Rosario de Hombres; In addition, he has formed a political movement, Viva México, with which he threatens to run in the elections of the North American country in June 2024.
He assures in his interviews that the project found him and that Ballard inspired him, as a “real, flesh-and-blood hero,” to do this “celebration of freedom.” He describes as a “miracle” what he sells as the triumph of David from Sound of Freedom once morest Goliath from Indiana Jones. Another issue is that viewers often don’t buy one ticket, but two. A QR code is projected on the movie pass that encourages those who cannot afford to see it to buy a ticket (a movie ticket in the US can cost between 12 and 25 euros).
A still from the film ‘Sound of Freedom’ (2023), with the actors Jim Caviezel (right) and Javier Godino.IMDB
For his part, the former president himself, already in the run-up to the campaign, has organized a private screening at his residence in New Jersey that was attended, as Verástegui has published on his networks, both the producer and Caviezel and Ballard himself, whom Trump already appointed advisor to a commission in his presidential term. Both he and his organization also reject all possible conspiracy theories. But Trump has already assured that “when he returns” (not “if” he returns) to the White House, he will take action. “I will immediately end the nightmare of Biden’s border, where traffickers exploit vulnerable women and children. I will ask Congress that anyone who engages in child trafficking across the border be tried immediately with the death penalty.”
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