End of the Spear

In 1956, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, five American missionaries were speared to death by the Waodani people they were trying to reach. Jim Elliot and Nate Saint were among them. The Waodani were at that time inside a cycle of revenge killing that had brought them close to disappearing. The film tells it from both sides: from Mincayani, who threw a spear, and from Steve Saint, the son of one of the men killed. What the families built with the tribe afterwards changed both lives. Chad Allen plays both Nate and Steve Saint, and casting an openly gay actor in those roles produced calls for a boycott among the evangelical audience the film was made for. The producers stood by him.