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Exclusive Interview With Jesse Moss On The Overnighters

We Got This Covered speaks with Jesse Moss, the director behind the season's buzziest documentary, Sundance sensation The Overnighters.

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WGTC: I don’t want to spoil the film’s ending, but we find out some very private information about the pastor. When were you made aware of this struggle?

Jesse Moss: When I met Jay, I very quickly learned that he was a complicated person. He had self-awareness and he was self-critical, and I knew that he was acting out of an expression of faith. The Christian ethic to ‘love thy neighbor’ was very meaningful for him as a Christian and a choice that struck me as universally moral. But, I also sensed from early on from what Jay said and what he didn’t say but expressed in other ways that there was within him turmoil. His identification with men who were broken or burdened… or who felt shame came from some place deep inside of him.

I didn’t know that the film would unlock that meaning or understanding. I didn’t know if this was something that Jay would ever tell me. But I sensed that it was there and I think he wanted me to know that it was there. He says to the men, “you and I are more alike than we are different, and that everyone carries burden.”

[The discovery of this secret] happened chronologically. I arrived at the film at the end of the program and Jay said to me, “I’m going to lose my job,” and we talked about why. He told me why. There was a sense of inevitability to the tragedy. Some people grapple with absorbing this but I think that it’s actually very meaningful.

WGTC: How did Pastor Reinke react to the film?

Jesse Moss: He saw the film with me and we talked about it. I think he came to feel, as I did, that [his struggle] had a place in the story. The film, in his words, dignified the pain that he went through. It really underscores the message of the film, which is one of humility and of compassion, that everybody is broken in their own way and that no one is perfect. People are good and they are bad. He lives his convictions and I think his willingness to let the film be as it is, is a reflection of his principles. That said, most of us are not that brave. He is and he travels with the film and talks to audiences. That’s a further testament to his bravery.

His experience was what the experience has been for me with other documentary film subjects. In abstraction, the film is terrifying. He could see that the film was called The Overnighters, and it was really about this program and his investment in helping these people. It wasn’t strictly about his personal life and his family. Once he saw the full scope of this movie and saw there was a compassionate core at the center of the story, he was relieved. He said to me, “there wasn’t as much [Biblical] word in the film as he would like.” I said, “well, I know, but watch it again. There’s more word than you think.”

WGTC: How did the rest of the community react to having a filmmaker in their presence, whether at the church or around the town?

Jesse Moss: Williston had become the center of attention in the media, so I wasn’t the only journalist or person with a camera to show up there. In some ways, I was just another person with a notebook and a pen, telling the story of Williston’s transformation. I was different in that I came back and I got to know people. I think they scratched their head and thought, “why is he spending so much time in Pastor Jay’s church? Why isn’t he interviewing the mayor or going to oil rigs?”

There was some weariness particularly within the congregation about me and that was a reflection of their feelings about Jay and the program. I had to work very hard to represent the scenes of discord within the congregation, which to me, were very profound… about the meaning of community and Christian ethics.

They are wrestling with questions that have no easy answers that I think should be worthy of being shown in this film. But that took some convincing. For example, that scene with a congregant named Shelley, who wanted to see him and voice her complaint. I was very grateful that she allowed me to film that scene. She’s a very rational person who I think lays it out there for him. You can equally identify with her. She’s not a shrill, conservative churchgoing school mom. I think the congregation has a fair point… maybe their resources are not best utilized as a ‘homeless shelter.’ Maybe somebody else should bear that responsibility. Again, no easy answers.

WGTC: At one moment late in the film, someone comes and threatens you to leave their property with a loaded gun. It seems that the pastor is taking his time when it comes to leaving. If I were holding a camera, I would grab what I had and ran. How scary of an experience was that, and why did it take you so long to get off of the property?

Jesse Moss: That was a very scary experience. I’ve never had that happen to me in my years of documentary work. I think if that had happened when I was three months into production on this movie, I would have put my camera down and walked away. That didn’t happen until the end of my journey in North Dakota. I thought, this man who I have been through so much with… I have gone down the rabbit hole with this man. If he’s going to be shot dead in front of me, I better be rolling [the camera]. When I was in that position, you’re running a kind of complex algorithm in your head. Is the gun loaded? Is she truly crazy? Will she shoot a pastor? Is the pastor’s faith in God going to extend some divine protection to him and to me? These are the calculations you’re making.

Filmmaking is a non-rational act, it’s an emotional and intuitive act. In a way, my actions at that point are not rational, they’re emotional. They’re about my investment in my film and my investment in Jay and by total conviction I have to keep rolling.

We thank Jesse Moss for sharing his experiences making this terrific film. Be sure to catch The Overnighters, which is in limited release now and expanding over the next few weeks.