White Night: Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Reverend Criminal Jim Jones

Joseph Gordon-Levitt will play Jim Jones, the reverend criminal, in the film White Night: we discover the details of the incredible story

White Night will trace the true story of the Jonestown Massacre, the largest mass suicide in US history, caused by fanatic Reverend Jim Jones. To give the face to the infamous religious will be Joseph Gordon-Levitt, while at his side there will be Chloë Grace Moretz in the role of Deborah Layton, one of the members of the sect created by the pastor. So let’s find out some details about the film and the true story that inspired it.

White Night: The True Story of Jim Jones

On November 18, 1978, ben 909 people they lost their lives simultaneously, poisoning themselves with cyanide. These people were part of the People’s Temple Agricultural Project, a community that arose in northwestern Guyana under the leadership of Reverend Jim Jones, creator of the sect known as the People’s Temple.

The figure of Jim Jones is one of the darkest in all of American history. Born on May 13, 1931 in a small town in Indiana, he soon approached the faith and preaching the gospel and at 21 he began to be a pastor in Indianapolis. In 1954 Jones founded the own church and he began to gather proselytes, founding his own doctrine on racial integration and social justice. Gradually the tones of his sermons became more and more visionary and eccentric, starting to talk about an imminent nuclear catastrophe and thus making the decision to move, together with the members of his sect, to Northern California.

After some allegations of fraud and sexual abuse, the reverend moved with his community to Guyana, where he founded the town of Jonestown and gave life to his Project. Here, the reverend invited members of his community to take their own lives to “defend themselves from evil” and they obeyed after receiving a dose of cyanide. Jones was instead found dead from a gunshot wound to the head.

White Night, the film about the Jonestown massacre

The terrible victory of the Jonestown massacre will be brought to theaters in the film White Night, where Joseph Gordon-Levitt will lend his face to the mad reverend. The film will be directed by Anne Sewitsky, Norwegian director who has given birth to blockbusters such as Happy, Happy and Homesick and directed one episode of the Black Mirror series and two of Castle Rock.

The film will focus more on the last moments of Jim Jones’s life and the existence of his community, then on the insane mass suicide that took place in Guyana. The figure of the priest will be observed by the eye of a convinced devotee like Deborah Layton, played by Chloë Grace Moretz. Clearly, the expectation around this project is very high, so follow us for other updates.

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