DIRECTOR OF MANY: A scene from Audience of One. (Photo: Toronto After Dark Film Festival)

When watching The Nativity Story or The Ten Commandments, did you ever think to yourself “I bet this would be better as a futuristic sci-fi epic?”

Pastor Richard Gazowsky wants to satisfy that void in film history and Mike Jacobs has captured every failing moment in his captivating documentary Audience of One. Gazowsky “really want[s] to make the greatest film ever made” but he only watched his first film – The Lion King – at age 40 and has never before touched a camera. Nevertheless, he has taken on the challenge because God told him to make movies.

With the support and inexperienced assistance of his family and congregation, Gazowsky takes his delusions of grandeur from San Francisco to Italy to shoot the multimillion-dollar, biblical sci-fi epic Gravity: The Shadow of Joseph, complete with costumes, stunts and special effects. It is “Star Wars meets The Ten Commandments,” says a devotee and the film’s producer.

Unfortunately for the cast and crew, anything that can go wrong does and no one has the first clue how to deal with it except to join together and pray for divine intervention; after all, they are shooting this movie for Him – their audience of one.

Watching these righteous amateurs sink their time and money into a doomed project is simultaneously pitiful, amusing and almost insulting to those who spend years perfecting their skills before embarking on a project of such magnitude. It is impossible not to laugh at their determined optimism and complete lack of moviemaking knowledge as they stumble over obstacles and alienate local professionals and financial backers. In addition, the disapproval of Gazowsky’s mother, the original church founder, goes further to discredit his ideas and methods.

Fans of American Movie and Lost in La Mancha will take pleasure in gazing at the parade of bizarre characters and inevitable mishaps.