Culture 4 min read By Trevor Kendall
‘Heathens’ Trailer Shows Five Strangers Leaving Religion Behind
The documentary 'Heathens' follows five people who have left their religious backgrounds and meet at a Blue Ridge Mountains retreat to rebuild their lives, with a world premiere set for the fall festival season.
A new documentary called «Heathens» will follow five strangers who gather at a retreat in the Blue Ridge Mountains, each carrying a secret that could put them at odds with their families, communities, and Christian churches: they have walked away from their religious upbringings. The first trailer for the film has been released ahead of its world premiere.
The documentary is directed and produced by David Cowan and Shawn Hardin. According to the film's logline, the five participants come together at the mountain retreat with the shared goal of reclaiming their lives after leaving the faith traditions they were raised in. The trailer presents their stories as a collective reckoning with what it means to break from a religious background in a country where Christianity remains deeply woven into family and community life.
«Heathens» arrives at a moment when stories about religious disaffiliation have moved from the margins of American culture into the mainstream. The number of Americans who describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated has grown steadily in recent decades, and documentaries, books, and podcasts about leaving faith have found large audiences. The film's title leans directly into a label that has historically been used against non-believers, turning it into a point of identity rather than an insult.
The retreat setting places the five subjects in a shared space where they can speak openly about experiences they may have hidden from the people closest to them. The trailer suggests the documentary will balance personal testimony with the broader social friction that follows when someone rejects the beliefs of their upbringing. For many former believers, that decision can mean strained relationships with parents, loss of standing in a congregation, or a painful separation from the only community they have known.
By focusing on a small group in a single location, the film appears designed to let viewers sit with the emotional weight of those ruptures rather than treat them as statistics. The Blue Ridge Mountains backdrop gives the retreat a removed, contemplative quality, separating the participants from the daily pressures of the churches and families they left behind.
Cowan and Hardin serve as both directors and producers, giving them a direct hand in shaping how the subjects' stories are told. The documentary is positioned for the fall festival circuit, where nonfiction films about religion, identity, and community frequently draw attention from distributors and streaming platforms looking for timely human stories.
The release of the trailer marks the first major public look at the project. It introduces the five participants as individuals with distinct histories but a common resolve, framing their time at the retreat as an effort to move forward rather than simply define themselves against the faiths they exited.
For audiences who follow the growing conversation around secularism and religious exit, «Heathens» offers a personal-scale portrait of a trend that is often discussed in abstract terms. The film's premiere will determine whether it becomes part of that wider cultural conversation or remains a quieter study of five people navigating life after belief.
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