“I think killing a person… yes, it’s bad, but it’s not that difficult. But loving another man… that’s… that’s not natural.”
That chilling line represents the murky moral and spiritual conflict at the heart of Unforgivable, an eye-opening short film that will air as part of VICE‘s documentary series, The Short List with Suroosh Alvi.
From filmmaker Marlén Viñayo, Unforgivable follows the story of Geovany, a former hitman for the infamous 18th Street Gang who is serving his sentence in a Salvadoran isolation cell. While in prison, he quit the gang and, instead, joined an Evangelical church that has “lavished God’s forgiveness on him.” But there’s one thing that, in this church’s eyes, not even God can forgive: Being gay.
The documentary gives us glimpses into both life in the prison, as well as the church in question, which believes that “God compares the homosexual to a dog, to an animal.”
But, despite what he and those around him believe, Geovany has fallen in love with another man, and it’s clear that there’s a real connection between them. “‘They are going to kill us,’ I told him. ‘I don’t care. I’ll die happy because I’m with the person I love.'”
Viñayo’s film has been playing the global festival circuit where it’s picked up plaudits like “Best Short” at Amsterdam’s International Documentary Film festival in 2020, and won the Gabo Award in 2021, a special distinction honoring the best in Spanish and Portuguese-language journalism.
The doc will make its The Short List premiere on September 1, when VICE will air it followed by an exclusive conversation between the director and renowned journalist Suroosh Alvi.
You can watch the short teaser trailer for Unforgivable below, and then learn more about how to watch The Short List films on the VICE website here.
RickHeathen
Religion ruins people. This is disgusting.
KyleMichelSullivan
F*ck the church. It’s just another addiction, like cigarettes, coke and booze…only worse. The latter three don’t try and tell you how to live your life, nor do they kill you for not conforming to their views.
FROLIC
HIHO — Hate in, hate out. Parroting the hate preached to them by their pastors while attending church services. These churches should be taxed, and the place should be shut down if they don’t pay. Hateful, judgmental, racist bigots.
dale hankins
Interesting Thou Shalt not Kill is one of the Ten commandments, but they say nothing about loving another man.
TimidTim
Not part of the 7 Deadly Sins either.
Moses, Casey Kasem, if there’s a countdown we don’t make the cut yet they’ll probably use the excuse “it’s so appealing it goes without saying” or some bogus garbage like that. People used to add on to the Bible all the time yet when it came to the most infamous portions with the numbers like the BIG 10 or the BIG 7 that they know it catches peoples eyes enough to where they would notice and call them out on their BS
johncp56
All need to be said is Religion, I jumped that ship in 5th grade, they all teach hate judgment and ask us for money! as they are some of the richest tax-free companies, the maga churches have to start paying up we have so many homeless and child health care problems! these churches need to face the music, and pay up bitches, and stop feeding on the weak.
CityguyUSA
Seems most guys in the South America are largely gay at least on IG.
Cozmo2
So the church can forgive A murderer but not homosexuality so what child molesting priests