John Chau’s death in 2018 made headlines around the world: an evangelical young man killed on an island in the Andaman Sea inhabited by an isolated Indigenous group.
Chau came to North Sentinel Island bearing a waterproof Bible and dreams of converting the North Sentinelese to Christianity, but his ill-fated mission ended in a hail of sharpened arrows.
Five years after Chau’s fatal endeavor, National Geographic is releasing The Mission, a documentary about Chau’s life, violent death and the ethical questions raised by his attempt to Christianize a people well known for repelling attempts by outsiders to contact them.
Emmy-winning directors Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss join Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast to discuss their film, which premiered in late August at the Telluride Film Festival. “[John Chau] was living his faith in a very radical way,” Moss tells Doc Talk. “He trained for 10 years to get to North Sentinel Island.
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