Same God is an independent film from director Linda Midgett about an African-American political science professor at Wheaton College—a prestigious evangelical school outside of Chicago—who wanted to show support for Muslim women by posting a photo of herself in a hijab on Facebook. Within days Dr. Larycia Hawkins was fired by the university.The film brilliantly explores the polarization taking place within the evangelical community over issues of race, Islam, religious freedom and politics and was a project we really wanted to support.

When we got involved the film was already starting to get a good buzz in progressive Christian circles and we on board as a national PBS broadcast for the film was scheduled, so we wanted to build upon some of these early successes. In partnership with the Zakat Foundation, an organization that works within the Muslim community, we reached out to our frequent partners at the Sheen Center for Thought & Culture in New York to host a premiere for the film which resulted in this amazing Rolling Stone feature among others.

Shortly after, we took the film on the road with Vote Common Good, an initiative mobilizing people of faith to make ‘common good’ their voting criteria, which was a perfect audience. We screened the film during the Iowa Caucuses (not knowing a Global Pandemic was right around the corner.)

Unfortunately the Pandemic hit the United States just as the film was releasing in theaters, so we quickly had to pivot towards a direct-to-consumer digital strategy. We hosted a series of live Sunday Cinema talk-backs with Linda, Larycia and other experts on religion and politics to promote the quickly arranged Amazon release of the film and leaned into the political moment that was happening in anticipation of the 2020 presidential election.

We also initiated a Share Your Solidarity Story promotion where we invited people to record a short video sharing how the film inspired them to “embody solidarity” like Larycia — we received tremendous feedback in the process and shared submissions from across the US on the film’s website.

Like all of the independent films we represent, our work with Same God is ongoing as we continue to pursue opportunities that will create new audiences for the film.