“Freedom” stars Jim Caviezel as Tim Ballard, a real-life former federal agent, who attempts to track down a kidnapped little girl, Rocio, in the film.
Echoing the experience of many moviegoers, Eight Days of Hope leader Steve Tybor tells AFN he could hardly sit through the movie and its accurate and heart-breaking depiction of child sex trafficking.
“The movie is so well done and I'm so glad that it's been attended so heavily across the country because this story needs to be told,” he says. “The Church needs to know this is real. It's happening in your backyard.”
The topic is also personal to Tybor and Eight Days because the disaster relief ministry has branched out in a new direction: Building safe houses for victims of human trafficking. With help from Eight Days volunteers, a 12-building campus in Ohio is currently in phase one of construction.
“This will be the largest safe house for children rescued from trafficking in the Northeast,” Tybor says of the future home for girls aged 14 to 18.
Eight Days is partnering with Safe Harbor Ohio to help that rescue organization with the $3.5 million project.
Regarding the film, Tybor predicts it will bring much more awareness to the problem.
“It just doesn't happen in Las Vegas and New Orleans and New York City,” Tybor cautions, “but it happens in Wichita, Kansas and Rochester, New York, and everywhere in between.”
According to Angel Studios, the production company behind the film, more than two million children will be trafficked in the U.S. this year.
Not everyone is a fan
If there's anything those on the Left and the Right should be able to agree on, it's that kidnapping and selling little girls for perverted men's pleasure is bad. But that doesn't seem to be the mindset among some on the Left.
For example, journalist Mike Rothschild on CNN over the weekend said the movie is a right-wing dog whistle:
"These films are created out of moral panics, they're created out of bogus statistics, they're created out of fear – and with something like 'Sound of Freedom,' it specifically is looking at Q-Anon concepts of these child trafficking rings that are run by the high-level elites."
Even in a fairly positive review, Variety magazine called the film a "religious thriller" and a "faith-based movie."
But Dr. Alex McFarland of Truth for a New Generation argues it is neither. He contends those who side with human traffickers in order to "own" Christians have completely missed the plot – and are guilty of spreading wickedness.
"The woke Left, which prides itself on human rights and social justice, would willingly ignore the evils of human trafficking simply because it is conservative Christians who have brought so much to light," he tells AFN.
Curtis Houck of Media Research Center says these liberals are unwilling to look in the mirror. "They are seemingly incapable, or purposefully refusing, to rewind the tape and watch themselves," he exclaims.
Houck admits to wanting to ask some leftists: "Do you hear yourself talking?"
Comments from McFarland and Houck added after story was originally posted.
