The Other Side of Heaven: A Dream Realized

The Other Side of Heaven: A Dream Realized
by Jonathan S. Walker

As the press wandered into the plush Bombay room of the Hotel Monaco in downtown Salt Lake, the powerhouse players of the new movie The Other Side of Heaven sat quietly-and uneasily. Hard as it is to believe, the five people on the panel actually looked apprehensive, as though they were awaiting the verdict from an unfriendly jury.

The judgement won’t come for another two months.

Mitch Davis, Director

In December, The Other Side of Heaven will begin it’s platform release. The film will be released in two or three cities and expand slowly until it has penetrated even the smallest markets. Only then will the five at the table know the fate of the film that has taken so much of their sleep in recent years. The five included the producers, Gerald R. Molen and John Garbett; the writer-director Mitch Davis; Elder John H. Groberg of the Seventy from whose memoir came the story; and, Jeff Simpson from the Salt Lake-based Excel Entertainment, the film’s distributor.

The Other Side of Heaven is based on Elder Groberg’s missionary experience in Tonga in the 1950s. He admits that the story is much more about what he learned from them than his preaching to them. It is a coming of age story, an “odyssey” as many of the panelists describe it-and definitely an adventure.

Writer-director Mitch Davis exudes hope. The Other Side of Heaven is the realization of a “personal and outrageous dream” he had back in the early 1980s. Returning from his mission to Argentina, he enjoyed watching Chariots of Fire and decided he wanted to make a film “about a Mormon for the world.” He wanted it to be bold and adventure-filled. He found that story in Elder Groberg’s memoir.

Gerald Molen, Producer

“It’s one thing to have a dream,” Davis says. “It’s [another] thing to have people put their arms around you and make it possible.” He refers to the veteran Hollywood producers Gerald R. Molen and John Garbett.

Molen is best known for producing many of Steven Spielberg’s films including Schindler’s List and Jurassic Park. He does admit that it is the lowest budgeted film he has been a part of in years. In fact, Davis recounts Molen giving him a tour of the set of Spielberg’s next film. Molen pointed to some lights, “See that lighting apparatus? That cost more than your movie.” Humbling himself to produce the $7 million Heaven may seem to be a letdown for Molen, but he feels just the opposite. After 44 years in the film industry, this is his highlight, the “exclamation point” on his career.

Davis, Molen and Garbett all are quick to point out that the film is “purely a commercial venture,” and that the LDS church had no part in it whatever. In fact, Davis points out that during the audience previews they intentionally excluded members of the church and tailored the film’s final edit to comments made by non-members.

Actor playing role of
Elder John Groberg

Although Elder John H. Groberg tows that party line, it’s also apparent that he sees things a bit differently. His great desire for the film is that it will help people see “that there really is a God out there” A God who knows us and is involved in our lives.

Elder Groberg wasn’t always convinced that a movie was the best medium for his story. He only agreed to allow the film rights to be purchased and the movie to be made when he felt confident Davis, Molen, and Garbett would do the story justice. “This is for real,” he said. They are “real people who have done real things.” He feels that they have maintained the spirit and essence of the book. “I trusted them, and they responded well to that trust.”

That trust now moves to Jeff Simpson of Excel Entertainment. While Excel distributed God’s Army and Brigham City, Simpson admits that it is “graduation time” for his staff. Their previous forays into film distribution was directed to members of the church and consequently was much less ambitious than The Other Side of Heaven. They must reach a much wider audience on a much wider scale.

Evidently, there were larger companies willing to distribute the film, but the producers decided that Excel was the best option. When dealing with the “league of the big boys,” Molen warned. They make “demands, creatively.” None of them wanted to pay that price.

Now they must sit back and hope that others will be as taken in by the Elder Groberg’s mission story as they were.

Scene from The Other Side of Heaven