WORSHIP AWRY
2025 · 8m
Directed by Ryan Mesidor
Genres: animation, biography, drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
This film follows a worship leader who questions her faith after a robbery incident. “Worship Awry” was inspired from BPT podcast episode “Anxiety Doesn’t Set the Agenda Anymore” in which Jonathan Allen talks about his journey of being a worship leader that suffered debilitating, unpredictable panic
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A worship leader having a faith crisis after a robbery is spiritually on-brand, but the animation gambit—if it's doing something genuinely strange with form to externalize that panic—could've been subversive; instead it feels like the safe house style for heavy subjects.
Mesidor situates this in the lineage of contemporary animated essays on faith and mental health, and there's formal restraint in the 8-minute frame that respects both the podcast source and the vulnerability of the premise—a considered piece of work.
The decision to animate this podcast-sourced anxiety feels like it hinges entirely on whether the visual language captures something a live-action adaptation couldn't—if the animation is doing the panic-work that dialogue alone won't carry, that's the whole film.