Lindsay Pitre, a native of New Orleans living in Tabernash, won best documentary for her film “God As My Witness” at the 2025 Winter Park Film Festival.
Winter Park Film Festival/Courtesy photo

A Tabernash filmmaker has been recognized internationally for her breakout feature film “God As My Witness,” which analyzes a generations-long molestation scandal involving the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

The 82-minute film directed by Lindsay Pitre won best documentary at the Winter Park Film Festival in September after its premiere in June at London’s Raindance Film Festival. The film is slotted for domestic and international screenings through November, with stops at festivals in North Carolina, Ohio, Japan and Pitre’s native city of New Orleans.

The story centers around Scot Brandner’s abuse by Brian Highfill, a Catholic priest in New Orleans. Brandner never told anyone about the abuse and ultimately committed suicide at the age of 29. In 2018, his brother Michael Brandner Sr. discovered love letters to Scot from Highfill, but was dismissed when he presented them to the Catholic archbishop of New Orleans.

After hearing the Brandner family’s story, as well as other abuse stories reported by the Guardian and local New Orleans news station WWL-TV, Pitre she knew there was a larger story to tell. Drawing on her background in journalism, she initially wanted to work behind the scenes as a co-producer and interviewer.

She offered the director role to filmmaker friends John Alexander and JC Guest, who hired her to co-produce their 2018 film “This is Love.” Instead, they encouraged her to take the lead. Pitre had never directed a movie before, but willingly accepted the challenge, recruiting Brandner Sr. as her executive producer.

The process, from the film’s conception to the day it screened at Winter Park Film Festival on Sept. 7, took less than two years. It covers church abuse from the 1960s to 2022, compressing a 60-year period into one documentary. Pitre spent three months interviewing survivors for up to six hours in one sitting, and filming went nonstop for six weeks. During that time, she sat with stories that deeply troubled her.

“Of the 600 victims, I only interviewed eight, and I still didn’t include all eight of those in the
movie,” she said. “It was 88 hours footage, several hours of stories.”

Preserving her own mental health — and that of her crew — was crucial throughout the process, she said. But Pitre also saw the work as necessary, a way to bring survivors together and open up difficult conversations.

“This documentary is allowing people to understand that they are not alone,” Pitre said. “There are resources. People can talk about it.”

Pitre invites local survivor groups to attend each screening. When the documentary played at Portugal’s Cinema em Locais Inusitado e Temporarios film festival, Cardinal Américo Aguiar, the Catholic bishop of the diocese of Setúbal, watched in his private chapel. Joining him in the audience was Grupo Vita, a Portuguese national support group for Catholic clergy abuse survivors.

Lindsay Pitre accepts the award for best documentary from Austin Becker at the 2025 Winter Park Film Festival on Sept. 7.Winter Park Film Festival/Courtesy photo

Pitre highlighted the success of “God As My Witness” at Winter Park Film Festival as a landmark in her career, noting that the film fit in well with one of the festival’s central themes this year: confronting mental health challenges.

“I created a platform for people to feel catharsis, which is kind of the best outcome,” Pitre said. “These days, a lot of people go to the movies for escapism. There are not many that make you feel, or that you can connect with. I think that’s what my documentary does.”

Mental health remains an especially pressing concern in Grand County, where 28 people died by suicide from 2018 to 2024, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment.

“I understand it from a personal level,” Pitre said, having lived in the county for five of the 10 years she has been in Colorado.

Connor Nelson, organizer and director of the three-year-old film festival, said one of his goals this year was to broaden the lineup by including more works that address under-discussed issues like trauma and resilience.

“I think a lot of people walk out surprised when they watch some sort of documentary that really moves them,” he told Sky-Hi News in August. “These are films that you relate to, and you relate to the people within the films much more than you would with a $100 million film coming out of Hollywood.”

Winter Park Film Festival has already grown to attract national and international attention in its three years, Nelson said, and is carving out a place on the Colorado film circuit alongside Telluride and Sundance, which announced its move to Boulder beginning in 2027.

Pitre said the same mountain town charm and expanding arts scene that drew the Oscar-qualifying Sundance festival to Boulder could also attract new talent to Grand County’s film industry.

“When people come out here and see what’s been filmed out here, and the National showcase in Grand County, I hope it’ll draw both independent filmmakers and production analysis to understand the versatility of Colorado as a filming location,” Pitre said.

Filmmaker Lindsay Pitre has been working in Colorado’s creative industry for a decade. She currently resides in Tabernash.Lindsay Pitre/Courtesy photo
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