THOSE WHO LOVE ME WILL FOLLOW ME

Alessandro Giovanni Lunghi’s short film walks straight into sacred territory and refuses to bow. It isn’t interested in belief—it’s interested in people. That distinction is what gives "Those Who Love Me Will Follow Me" its quiet power. For a story built around a miracle, its real concern is the mess that follows when humanity gets involved: ego, hunger, fear, and the devastating machinery of expectation. Faith here is not a refuge—it’s a marketplace.

The premise is simple enough to feel mythical: a child resurrects the dead. But Lunghi does not linger on the resurrection. There is no awe-struck montage, no indulgence in spectacle. The miracle is treated like a virus—something that escapes into the world, and at the hands of humanity, mutates into something all consuming as it spreads. The film’s heart is Daniela, a mother who senses, from the very first moment, that what comes next has nothing to do with God. She sees what the others don’t: that miracles are not gifts—miracles are burdens, and those who carry them are consumed.

The film becomes a portrait of decay disguised as salvation. Once the news breaks, the small Texas town transforms into a battleground of appetite. Reporters, believers, profiteers—they circle like carrion birds. But the most unsettling betrayal comes from within the family itself. Dorek, the pastor father, is not written as a cartoon villain; his descent is far more uncomfortable. He convinces himself he is doing holy work, while quietly abandoning his own son’s humanity. He does what many people do when faced with power—they justify its exploitation as purpose.

In that sense, the film is less about religion and more about a world that knows only how to consume. God becomes branding. Grief becomes marketing. A child becomes a headline. Humanity is replaced by noise. And yet Lunghi keeps the story intimate, anchored by the raw truth of a mother who wants nothing more than to protect her son from a world that will break him just to own him.

The filmmaking is thoughtful, though not without cracks. Its ideas run deeper than its structure can fully hold. Scenes jump with a restlessness that sometimes rushes emotional beats before they’ve fully formed. The final act in particular feels abruptly compressed—as though the story reached a point too large to resolve in the time left. The final image is haunting, but the path to it feels like a jump rather than an evolution. You can feel the film pushing against its own runtime, itching to explore further—the theological implications, the racial undertones, the psychology of devotion and despair. There is more story here than space.

But despite that, the film lands. Because what it says about us—about what we do to anything pure—is disturbingly accurate. It refuses easy answers. It never moralizes. It just observes: this is what happens when a miracle meets modern society. This is how quickly wonder becomes profit. This is how faith becomes theatre. And most painfully—this is how a child becomes lost.

The film chooses restraint over sensationalism. It avoids preaching. It trusts that the horror is not in crucifixion, but in exploitation—slow, hungry, relentless. There are no demons here. No cosmic tests. Just people. And that’s what makes it feel real. I don’t need to believe in religion to believe in this story. I just need to believe in people. And people, as the film reminds us, are entirely capable of destroying the very thing they claim to worship.