Jonas (2013 film)

Overview

Jonas is a 2013 American religious thriller directed by Adam Rehmeier and starring Gregg Gilmore as Jonas Nuckolls, a man who washes up on the California coast and spends a week in Los Angeles preaching a message he believes comes from God (Bloody Disgusting). Conceived as the companion piece to Rehmeier’s debut The Bunny Game — which Britain’s BBFC refused to classify — it was shot in six weeks, told in six stand-alone verses, and released free online (Warped Perspective; Vimeo).

The shadow of a banned film

Rehmeier’s debut, The Bunny Game (2011), was refused classification by the British Board of Film Classification over its unbroken focus on sexual and physical abuse — effectively banning it in the United Kingdom, as this site’s profile of that film documents (The Bunny Game). Jonas was conceived as its deliberate inverse. “In contrast to THE BUNNY GAME, JONAS is shockingly square and squeaky-clean, almost old-fashioned,” Rehmeier told Bloody Disgusting (Bloody Disgusting). His own Vimeo channel describes Jonas explicitly as “the companion piece” for the 2011 debut, following Jonas Nuckolls — played by Gregg Gilmore — door to door through Los Angeles delivering a powerful message (Vimeo). The connection is textual as well as thematic: viewers of the earlier film have already met Jonas, “very briefly, at the film’s close.” Even so, Jonas is a thematic sequel rather than a direct one, and it can be watched with no prior experience of its predecessor (Warped Perspective).

Six verses, six weeks, real people

The entire production spanned only six weeks from initial concept to full execution, which Rehmeier described as “strangely effortless” (Bloody Disgusting). The film is told in six separate verses that can be watched as a sequential feature or taken apart and viewed piece by piece, out of order — an experiment with the nature of film itself (Warped Perspective). It was planned but improvised, using real people and real responses, which makes it “as much a documentary as it is a fictional film” (Warped Perspective). Across a single week, Jonas moves through Los Angeles meeting a cross-section of the city — believers, skeptics, the vulnerable — in conversations about faith, love and humanity that belong as much to the people he meets as to him. The stat, source and implication: six weeks, concept to completion (Bloody Disgusting) — a production speed implying the film was built as a guerrilla experiment in faith and form, not a conventionally developed feature.

The free release

The most unusual documented fact about Jonas is its distribution: Rehmeier and Gilmore decided the film should be seen for free, announcing it would be “FREE to watch in upcoming weeks via www.jonasmovie.com” (Warped Perspective). Reviewer Nia Edwards-Behi read the strategy as an extension of the film itself — Jonas travels the city giving away Bibles, so a free film mirrors his mission — and judged the finished work “a powerful, complex and provocative film,” crediting Rehmeier’s composing, shooting and editing and Gilmore’s conceptualisation and performance as crucial to its working (Warped Perspective). Plex lists a 9 October 2013 release date and a 1-hour-51-minute runtime (Plex).

Element	Detail	Source
Concept to completion	Six weeks	Bloody Disgusting
Structure	Six separate verses; sequential or out-of-order viewing	Warped Perspective
Method	Planned but improvised; real people, real responses	Warped Perspective
Release model	Free via jonasmovie.com	Warped Perspective
Release date / runtime	9 Oct 2013; 1h 51m	Plex
Relation to debut	Companion piece / thematic sequel to The Bunny Game (2011)	Vimeo

Frequently asked questions

Is Jonas a sequel to The Bunny Game? Not directly. It is a thematic sequel and companion piece: the character Jonas appears very briefly at the close of The Bunny Game, but Jonas tells a self-contained story and can be watched with no knowledge of the earlier film. Rehmeier framed it as the deliberate inverse of his debut — “shockingly square and squeaky-clean” where the debut was extreme.

Why was Jonas released for free? Rehmeier and star Gregg Gilmore decided the film should be seen for free, announcing free streaming via jonasmovie.com in 2013. The contemporary review read the strategy as mirroring the film itself: Jonas travels Los Angeles giving away Bibles, so a free film extends his mission.

What does the “six verses” structure mean? The film is told in six separate verses that work as a sequential feature but can also be taken apart and watched piece by piece, out of order. Rehmeier’s own Vimeo channel released at least the first verse (“Verse 1”) as a stand-alone video.

How was Jonas made in only six weeks? Rehmeier said the production ran six weeks from initial concept to full execution. It was planned but improvised, shot cinéma-vérité style with real people giving real responses across Los Angeles — a method closer to documentary than to conventional narrative filmmaking.

Timeline

Date	Event	Source
2011	Trailer circulates; Rehmeier’s Vimeo frames the film as the companion piece to his 2011 debut The Bunny Game	Vimeo
14 Jul 2013	Full review documents the six-verse structure, the improvised Los Angeles shoot, and the free-release plan	Warped Perspective
9 Oct 2013	Listed release date; 1h 51m; rated PG	Plex

What this profile does not claim

• It does not date or locate the world premiere; no festival premiere listing was found in a citable source.
• It does not claim jonasmovie.com still hosts the film; only the 2013 free-release announcement is documented.
• It does not assert box-office or viewership figures; none appeared in citable sources.
• The BBFC’s refusal of The Bunny Game is documented in this site’s profile of that film, not re-litigated here.

What we could not verify

• The world-premiere venue and date — a 2011 trailer and a July 2013 review exist, but no citable premiere record.
• Current availability of the free release at jonasmovie.com.
• Any festival selections for Jonas.
• Whether the six verses were all released individually online; only Verse 1 was confirmed on Rehmeier’s Vimeo channel.

Sources

Bloody Disgusting — Teaser Trailer for Religious Thriller ‘Jonas’ (tier2; Rehmeier’s direct statements on premise, the six-week production, and the deliberate contrast with The Bunny Game).

Warped Perspective — Film Review: Jonas (2013) (tier3; six-verse structure, improvised production with real people, thematic-sequel relationship, BBFC context, free-release plan, critical assessment).

Vimeo (Adam Rehmeier’s channel) — Adam Rehmeier’s Videos on Vimeo (first-party; companion-piece framing, 2011 trailer, Verse 1 synopsis).

Plex — Where to Watch Jonas (2013) Online (tier3; release date, runtime, rating, producers, synopsis).

Tier counts: tier1 0, tier2 1, tier3 2, first-party 1. Wikipedia: lead index only, not cited.