Synopsis

Children of the Cult is an international investigation into the Rajneesh movement. One of the world’s biggest and most successful cults, it had communes in more than 30 countries in the 70s and 80s and was immortalised in the Netflix series Wild Wild Country. 

But until now, a central truth about the organisation has remained hidden. Filmmaker Maroesja Perizonius, herself a child of the communes, has connected with other former commune children and together, they’ve decided to change that.

Part retrospective, part unfolding investigation, this film tells the barely believable story of the treatment of children within the cult. Children who grew up in an environment where sex was everywhere, where they were separated from their parents and where there were no boundaries. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh built an entirely new society with its own moral code- where terrible crimes against children were facilitated and normalised.

The organisation still thrives today, profiting from Bhagwan’s teachings, yet no one has yet been called to account for the harm caused to children in its communes across the world. In the course of her unflinching investigation Maroesja unmasks perpetrators and demands answers from the closest members of the cult’s inner circle.