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There’s something indescribably creepy about watching teenage girls at father-daughter purity balls pledge to marry men just like Daddy, which is why Mirjam von Arx’s scrupulously respectful stance in “Virgin Tales” is the wisest position she could take.
VARIETY
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Von Arx manages to capture moments of pure gold
INDIEWIRE
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Ah! A well made film…scary for some, comforting for others….
HUFFINGTON POST
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Because the film documents rather than demonizes, the issues become clear and unclouded for everyone watching, and make this the sort of film more documentaries should aspire to be.
THE WASHINGTONIAN
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Virgin Tales is an intimate and non-judgmental portrait of the Wilson’s, a Colorado family like many others save the fact that the Wilson’s are the founders of the “Purity Balls”—Masonic-like rituals that waltz adolescent daughters into the virtues of a chaste await for marriage. Speaking to the current political climate against women in the U.S.A, the film provides an important glimpse into fundamentalisms’ modus operandi and their preferred battleground: Women’s bodies. Without insisting on the contradictions and moral turpitude of conservative Christians in the US, Virgin Tales successfully captures the inner workings of masculinist supremacy, its coding as religion awakening, and its dressing in gowns and tuxedos.
CLAUDIA BRAZZALE, PH.D
GLOBAL SCHOLAR,
INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH ON WOMEN, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY.
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Mirjam von Arx does not parade the Wilsons in front of the audience; she creates an impartial and respectfully reserved portrait.
TAGES-ANZEIGER
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«Virgin Tales» is a cleverly staged, powerful documentary film that has triggered heated debate simply because von Arx takes the chastity-obsessed seriously, instead of putting them on exhibit (which would have been far too easy).
NZZ AM SONNTAG
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Von Arx does not make the Wilsons and their way of life seem ridiculous. She proves to possess tact and assume the role of pure observer—the audience can and must form its own opinion.
20 MINUTEN ONLINE
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The strength of «Virgin Tales» rests in its fascinating proximity to the protagonists. An immense authenticity that filmmakers can achieve only when they accompany their “actors” over months and thus build a great relationship of trust. A documentary worthy of being watched by anyone interested in expanding spiritual-existential horizons. Watching «Virgin Tales» one does not need to know anything about the subject to end up brooding about it afterwards…
MEIN KINO.CH
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It is the great strength of the film that it allows the questions to emerge on their own. To this end it really needs no confrontation and no active questions from the filmmaker.
DRS4 NEWS
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Mirjam von Arx has achieved an extraordinary film that opens doors on political, spiritual and personal levels to a world that is just as fascinating as it is irritating. A brilliant contemporary document!
ART-TV
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