House of David film set for Friday premiere

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By Ryan Yuenger
ryany@wsjm.com

After decades of research, the story of a famous and mysterious local organization is headed to the big screen.

A new documentary exploring the origins and history of Benton Harbor’s House of David is set to premiere Friday at the LMC Mendel Center’s Hanson Theatre. The documentary, titled “House of David: Life Everlasting,” covers every aspect of the organization, from their amusement park and baseball team to the sex scandal involving leader Benjamin Purnell.

Executive Producer Chris Siriano, who grew up attending the amusement park at the House of David and eventually founded the House of David Museum in 1997, said the film will be the first in a 10-part series on the House of David. Each subsequent episode being a deeper dive into one aspect of the organization.

While there is still a lot more work to do on the rest of the films, Siriano said he is thrilled to present the first film to the public.

“It’s super exciting. It’s a giant check mark off my bucket list because it’s something that I’ve always prayed that I would be able to accomplish in my lifetime,” he said. “It’s a big step in the right direction, because this one has a lot of major players in it that help tell the story.”

After graduating college with a degree in history, Siriano said he made it a mission to learn about the history of southwest Michigan, and one common theme kept popping up.

“Everything that I read about and learned about and came across seemed to touch on the House of David in one way or another,” he said. “They owned it. They created it. They invented it, and on and on. So, I just made up my mind that I wanted to really dive in deep and learn this story.”

In his years researching the House of David, Siriano was able to talk to many living members of the group, and acquired more than 10,000 photos from their history in the process. For the better part of the past two years, Siriano has been working Emmy Award-winning South Haven filmmaker Rob Byrd of Moondog Productions on the project.

“It’s been a massive amount of work to put it all together,” Siriano said. “It’s a famous, mysterious story that a lot of people don’t understand or they’re confused about, or they only know certain aspects of. I wanted to tell the story in front of the whole United States basically. … It’s gonna hit the theaters this weekend and, hopefully it will go all over America.”

After the Friday premiere, there will be screenings across the region before the film is aired on PBS nationwide in the fall.

Upcoming local screening schedule

  • July 8 | Benton Harbor | LMC Mendel Center’s Hanson Theatre | 7 p.m. | $10
  • July 9 | Dowagiac | The Parish Event Center | 3:30 and 6:30 p.m. | $5 
  • July 11 | The Loma Theatre | Coloma | 1 p.m. | $4
  • July 13 | South Haven | Michigan Theatre | 1 p.m. | $4
  • July 16 | Niles | Wonderland Theatre | 10 a.m. | $4
  • July 22-24 | Benton Harbor | Celebration Cinema | check theater for showtimes and prices