The Final Exit of the Disciples of Ascensia



The Final Exit of the Disciples of Ascensia is a 46 animated film by Jonni Philips. The film is about empathizing with cult members as they are going through depression, the inherent distance in interpersonal relationships, PTSD, and moving forward in life. It follows the life of Celisse, after she joins the UFO cult the Disciples of Ascensia.

Plot
After awakening from a dream, a woman named Gail hears and reacts to strange beeping. She writes her husband, Derek, a note saying that she will be away for a few days, before walking out on the street. Outside, she sees a strange magenta orb arrive from the sky. An alien appears, and greets Gail, calling her Ascensia. The alien asks Ascensia if she would "like to come home." Ascensia agrees and the two board the orb shaped spaceship. Ascensia sees alien planets and learns about their world. Afterwards, an alien asks Ascensia to find the seeds of the children they planted on earth and bring them back. Ascensia arrives back on earth, wearing clothes given to her by the aliens and going by here new name, confusing Derek.

The film then introduces us to Amy, showing us a montage of her life including a strange orb's intervention during her conception, her troubled childhood, seeing strange aliens, her emotional struggles growing up, finding a job and getting a roommate.

Amy arrives home one day to find a package for her from The Disciples of Ascensia. After taking a shower, she opens the package to find a VHS tape inside. The video features Ascensia, discussing her experience with the aliens, and asking the viewer to join her group. Amy begins to panic, believing in the tape and the message, but her roommate Janis chastises and teases her for doing so.

Amy decides to go meet the disciples and heads to their place of commune. There, she is greeted by Delilah, who introduces Amy to Ascensia. Amy tells Ascensia that she wants to join, and is given her new name, Celisse, given to her by the aliens through Ascensia via telepathy. Afterwards, Celisse is given her new outfit and is given a tour of the commune by Delilah, who shows Celisse her new bed.

The next morning, during the rollcall, Celisse is introduced to the other disciples and Ascensia gives a sermon while playing an electronic keyboard, speaking about their alien mothers. During mealtime, Celisse sits with fellow disciple Narnia, and asks her what she did before joining the Disciples of Ascensia. Narnia has a flashback. As a child she learned hypnotism, then hypnotized her parents to give her all their money. She learned to be a gymnast and grew up to compete at the olympic tryouts but failed, so she hypnotized the judges to let her in. However, she failed miserably at the olympics, unable to cover up her mistake she became unemployed before she learned about bitcoin. Narnia invested in bitcoin, earning a fortune, before becoming broke again after bitcoin's value dropped. Homeless, she received a tape from the Disciples of Ascensia which led her to the group. While Narnia explains this to Celisse, Celisse spots another girl from across the dining hall.

The next day during mealtime, Celisse decides to sit next to the girl she saw yesterday, Mira. The two chat, Mira mentioning her hobby in songwriting, and Mira agrees to share a song with Celisse sometime. After, Ascensia gives another sermon, this time about ascending.

During another mealtime, Celisse sits next to Li'l P. She attempts to talk to Li'l P, but they stay silent most of the time, until Celisse figures out a way to communicate with them through paper and pen. Through illustrations, Li'l P describes their childhood to Celisse. Their parents left Li'l P by themselves in a lighthouse as a child and they had grew up watching and teaching themself basketball before receiving the tape from the Disciples of Ascensia. That night, Celisse takes Li'l P's illustrations and tapes them to her bunk bed.

Next day, while Ascensia is giving a sermon on the punishment for leaving the commune before ascending, Derek arrives to talk to Ascensia. Wanting to talk in private, but pressed to talk in front of the disciples, Derek reveals that he wants to file an official divorce with Ascensia, as she had left without doing anything. Ascensia says that earthly laws have no power over her, and Derek leaves in a fit, goes home, and shaves his hair and beard.

After, Celisse and a group of Disciples are hanging out with Li'l P, when Celisse gets a phone call. Delilah listens over the line to decide whether Celisse should respond to Janis, who is calling. Janis reveals that she knows that Celisse is with the Disciples of Ascensia and tells her that everyone is angry and asking her where she's been. Celisse retorts, telling Janis that only with the Disciples has she truly felt heard or cared about in her entire life, and that no one in her past had truly tried to care about her. She tells Janis that she never wants to hear from any of them ever again and slams the phone. Delilah begins to freak out, thinking that Janis might call the police. Janis, at home, destroys the phone in anger, but calms down, believing that Celisse will be back.

Afterwards, while in their bedroom, Mira invites Celisse to come with her and listen to her play music, which Celisse agrees to. The two travel outside the commune, while Mira plays the guitar and sings. The film shows a flashback to Mira before she joined the Disciples, how she was kicked out of her home and was given the tape while on the train. Mira joins the group, although not as enthusiastic as enthusiastic as her fellow Disciples. After the song, Celisse tells Mira that she believes that listening to her song will be what ascending might feel like and the two head back to the commune.

That night, after dinner, Ascensia goes to sleep. She has a foreboding dream of hatching from an egg, and seeing a large monument representing the alien mothers suddenly exploding. She sees this as a sign that it is time to ascend, and tells the Disciples that during her next sermon in the morning. Everyone takes turns in the yard talking about their feelings about ascending, being recorded for anyone interested after the group ascends. Everyone boards a bus to leave the commune as it goes up in flames.

The bus stops at the gas station and Celisse and Mira hope off to go to the washroom. In the washroom, Mira asks Celisse what she thinks "ascending" actually is. She tells Celisse that nothing Ascensia sense makes any sense, critically, and it's likely that ascending will actually be death. Mira convinces Celisse to leave the group before it's two late. The two exit the gas station as Ascensia notices, and they run away.

Afterwards, Mira tells Celisse that she's called 911 and they'll be picked up in a while and the two sit on a cliffside by the lake. Mira apologizes about being rude to Celisse earlier and the two sit and wait. Suddenly, a pink orb arrives from the sky, being ridden by Ascensia and the rest of the Disciples. Ascensia is furious, telling them that the two will face an eternity as servants when they arrive back at their home planet, and Mira and Celisse are picked up by the spaceship. Inside, each of the disciples are being hugged by an alien as Ascensia scolds Mira and Celisse. The spaceship arrives at the planet, and Mira and Celisse begin their lifetime of servitude, creating statues for the aliens, cleaning floors and living in a large jail cell.

One day, Celisse is asked to bring Li'l P their dinner. She goes to Li'l P's home inside a large hole in the ground, where they have been drawing murals all over the walls with the help of Narnia. Narnia tells Celisse that they wish Celisse hadn't attempted to leave the disciples.

One day, Celisse is serving Delilah. Delilah asks Celisse if the planet feels any different from back home on earth, saying that she can barely tell the difference as the two look upon a startlingly similar cityscape to back earth. Delilah tells Celisse that if she had known that ascending would be like this, she wouldn't have tried.

While in jail, Celisse asks a guarding alien what their species name is, and they tell Celisse that they are called The Scrimbles. Celisse asks Mira to sing her a song, and Mira agrees.

The film shows a montage of what some of the other characters are up to. Janis is in shock, processing what has happened after finding out that Disciples have gone missing. Derek cries in the middle of the lake, after his rowboat sinks, he floats there looking at the sky. Ascensia leaves a meeting with the Scrimbles and finds one of their places of worship. She looks out the top of the building and begins to cry. Celisse finds a bug on the ground, which hops on her finger and produces another bug before flying away.

Cast and Crew
Jonni Phillips - writer, animator, story boarder, director, and editor

Hein Michelle Heo - Voice of Celisse (Amy), guest animator for Ascensia's dream, and writer for film

Jenna Caravello - voice of Mira and writer of film

Charlotte Price - Voice of Ascensia (Gail)

Victoria Vincent - voice of Delilah and guest animator

Chris Kim - voice of Narnia

Isabel Higgins - voice of Janis

Gary Mairs - voice of Derek

Sam Gurry - voice of Scrimbles

Frankie Tamaru - Assistant Animator and guest animator for Sermon #3

Jeanette Fantone - Assistant Animator and guest animator for Sermon #1

Misuzu Shibano - Assistant Animator

Serena Hughes - Assistant Animator

Worsey- Assistant Animator

Jake Ryan - Assistant Editor

Dylan Kanner- Writer and Performer of "Wasteland Ballad"

Jan Jurchak - Score, Sound Design, and Mixing

Wolf Woodcock - Score, Additional Instruments, Mixing for Mira's final song

History
The film was released for her Patreon supporters on April 26, 2019. The film came out out on June 1, 2019 on Youtube. When Jonni finished Goodbye Forever Party, she gotten interested in Heaven's Gate, a UFO cult infamous for committing mass suicide at a San Diego mansion. Here's a quote from her explaining the information for the inspiration:

"'When I finished the film, I got really interested in the UFO cult, Heaven’s Gate, an infamous cult that committed mass suicide in a San Diego mansion to ascend to Hale-Bopp comet as it passed overhead in 1997. I found their initiation tapes online, and got really drawn in to the leader, Do, and what he believed. I watched another video of the cult members talking about how excited they were to “go to the next level”, and I saw how happy they were. I empathized with their mindset, and felt like I loved and supported them, even though the whole situation was extremely tragic. I wanted to make a film about empathizing with cult members. My idea was that I would invent my own fictional cult, and portray what the cult believed in, in the film, as the absolute truth, and that they actually did ascend and leave earth. This was the jumping off point, and I started storyboarding and writing. Early on in the writing process, I asked for help from my good friends Jenna Caravello and Haein Michelle Heo, to help me write the film. They were instrumental to getting the film to a point where I was confident with how well it had been thought out.'-Jonni Phillips"

Trivia

 * The other students in Celisse's elementary school class seem to be human characterizations of the characters from Stilton

Soundtrack
The soundtrack is very abstract, featuring synthy pads and guitar ballads. The soundtrack features musicians Jenna Caravello, Dylan Kanner, Jan Jurchak, and Wolf Woodcock.

Tracklist

 * 1) Jenna Caravello - Hold On, Sailor
 * 2) Dylan Kanner - Wasteland Ballad
 * 3) Jenna Caravello - On a Day Like This One
 * 4) Jan Jurchak - Morning Hike
 * 5) Jan Jurchak - Lil P
 * 6) Jan Jurchak - The Fire
 * 7) Jan Jurchak - Narnia
 * 8) Jan Jurchak - Ocean Heartbeat
 * 9) Wolf Woodcock - Becoming a Disciple