THE VISION
SEE IT BEFORE
THE WORLD DOES
An intimate, cinematic documentary crafted for film festivals and streaming audiences.
Told through cinematic interviews, family archives and the places where it happened, Forbidden Prayers follows the story through the five parts of the memoir.
Ashes to Beauty
A childhood of secret prayers, a war survived, a life rebuilt in America, and a son born after a mother’s prayer at the relics of St. Basil.
Into the Wilderness
A routine injury, a misdiagnosis and a mother who keeps singing, keeps searching and keeps praying as her son slips further away.
Prisoners of Hope
As the world shuts down, a family holds on to the only thing left to them, and a prayer circles the globe every day at noon.
Shattered Hallelujahs
A mother’s war with God, her return to Him, and a son who wakes to say, “It’s not your time yet.”
Perfect in Weakness
From Belgrade at Christmas to a single candle at home, a family discovers that grace is made perfect in weakness.
Moments that stay with an audience
The film is built around images that stay with people long after the screen goes dark.
The Opening
A teenage boy dances and lip-syncs across a gymnasium floor to a song about staying alive. Then that same song becomes the rhythm his mother counts as she performs CPR to save his life, and the music bends into the wail of a siren that carries the story into the hospital.
The Mosaic
Images from emergency rooms, ambulance rides and hospital stays gather into a mosaic that forms Mikey’s face while his mother speaks about being silenced. In the stillness her prayer begins, and tile by tile the mosaic breaks open to reveal her son.
The Final Prayer
A mother’s letter to her son is read over the mosaic. Then Mikey lights a candle and prays in Serbian, and the film lets that prayer stand on its own in the silence that follows.
Where the film takes you
Long before St. Augustine was founded, there was a town on the Drina River whose name meant “bell tower.” Today it is called Zvornik, and it is where Gordana was born and where, as a girl, she learned to pray in whispers. An ocean away, in America’s oldest city, she found church bells that ring for anyone who wants to hear them, and the prayers she once kept hidden became the strength she fought with for her son. The film follows that journey, shot in the places where it was lived.
Fifteen voices, one story
The film brings together the people who lived it and walked beside the family: Gordana, Larry and Mikey, family in Belgrade, teachers, counselors, friends, and the physicians who cared for Mikey along the way. Built from a deep family archive of home videos, letters and photographs, it is made to the standard of award-winning documentaries, for a festival premiere and major streaming platforms.
Help us make this vision real
Every moment on this page becomes possible through partners who believe in it before the world sees it.
BECOME A PARTNER