KNOCKING opens the door on Jehovah's Witnesses. While protecting their own rights, they have won a record number of court cases expanding freedoms for all Americans. In Nazi Germany, they chose the concentration camps over fighting for Hitler. They refuse blood transfusions on religious grounds but support the science of bloodless medicine. They are moral conservatives who stay out of politics and the Culture War. KNOCKING follows two families who stand firm for their often controversial and misunderstood faith. Their stories reveal how one unlikely religion helped to shape history beyond the doorstep.
Riveting and illuminating. KNOCKING takes us inside the world of Jehovah's Witnesses in a way that is utterly surprising and moving.
Anderson Cooper, CNN
An absorbing account of a misunderstood religious movement and its relationship to contemporary culture. KNOCKING raises important questions about how we know and how we consider the religious "other," and through its own presentation, causes us to re-think the way media represent them.
Dr. Stewart M. Hoover
Director, Center for Media, Religion and Culture
University of Colorado
KNOCKING masterfully portrays the principled, non-violent dissent of Jehovah's Witnesses and the contribution that they have made -- directly and indirectly -- to the character of American national life. It is a study in religious integrity. Moving, powerful, poignant.
Rabbi Dr. Michael Berenbaum
University of Judaism
Former Director, United States Holocaust Research Institute
An extremely compelling documentary. KNOCKING affirms the principle that in a free society, the protection of religious liberty and the advancement of personal freedoms need not be competing values.
Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director, ACLU
Throughout this film, viewers are challenged to think about the relationship of religion, government, discrimination, family life, and civil liberties in unconventional and surprisingly human ways. KNOCKING will be useful for classes on freedom of expression, civic engagement and religion, and religion in the North American context, and will be of interest to all those concerned with how U.S. civil liberties are established and protected through the judicial branch of government.
Lynn Schofield Clark
Director of the Estlow International Center for Journalism and New Media
University of Denver
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