Chloe Grace Moretz and Sasha Lane intend to shock by highlighting the horrors of gay conversion therapy camps in a new movie.
The actresses star in director Desiree Akhavan’s new indie drama The Miseducation of Cameron Post, which focuses on a group of homosexual teenagers at a brainwashing camp.
Although the movie is set in the 1990s, the leading ladies unearthed research while preparing for the film that revealed these types of facilities are still very much active today.
“During pre-production, when we were in New York, Desiree and I really found it important to try and get as much information as we could, so that the group therapy scenes and the dialogue we were using would be as realistic as possible,” Chloe tells Vulture, “so we sat and talked to three or four different people who had survived conversion-therapy camps. And it was interesting, because there were a lot of people from completely different backgrounds.
“One guy was raised in a Muslim family, one person was raised in a Christian family, some were middle income, some were upper class – it really ranged from all kinds of areas, and it (was reflected in) the cast of this movie and how diverse we wanted it to be.
Openly gay Sasha notes the project was especially personal for her.
“I definitely connected to it,” she shares. “(Chloe) has two gay brothers, and me being gay, it was something we wanted people to be aware of. Not many people know that there are still conversion therapy camps out there… This film was set in ’93 – that’s not long ago at all.”
The Miseducation of Cameron Post made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah on Monday (22Jan18).
