About Jim Picariello

Filmmaker, Cult/Mind-Control Public Speaker

Jim lives in Brooksville, Maine, with his wife Jill Day with two daughters, Lucena and Isla. He’s a screenwriter/filmmaker who is attempting to break into the industry from rural, coastal Maine. It’s a surefire plan!!

His dark rom-com screenplay, The Cult of Us, is currently in development and was a Quarter-Finalist in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Nicholl Fellowship and a Coverfly Top 1% Project, among many other high accolades.

His previously optioned, modern, feminist, family animated feature, Igor and Frankie, was in the “Top 10%” in the Nicholl Fellowship and in the Top 14 of all family screenplays on Coverfly.

Connect with Jim: Instagram — IMDb — Website — LinkedIn — BlueSky

Filmmaking

Jim’s 5-time award-winning short film, This Time It’s Shopping, made for $100, was selected by 18 film festivals.

This achievement got the attention of Sesame Street, which hired Jim to make a short film about “the number 6” (seen at minute 18:42), which takes place on a coastal Maine farm.

Jim’s subsequent short film, Passive Aggressive Dads, has since been selected by 25 festivals, including Sedona, Nantucket, Breckenridge, SOHO, and BFI London. The film has also won 4 top awards, including Best Comedy (up against features) at the Beaufort International Film Festival.

A Little History

In 1993, Jim was slated to graduate from UMass Dartmouth with an impossibly practical combined degree in Philosophy and Electronic Music Production.

Without a clear career path and some lingering spiritual aspirations, Jim was promptly recruited into a Buddhist, Computer Programming Cult.

You read that right.

And it was run by a white dude named Frederick Lenz, a.k.a. Zen Master Rama.

Clearly, young Jim had not yet been introduced to the term “red flags.”

After being rescued from the cult by friends and family (I’m all right, by the way), Jim turned to activism, speaking out against mind control cults and the grip they have over their followers. Jim was widely featured across national media on the topic.

In 2002 Jim and Jill (pre-children) needed to get away from the noise and rush of the Boston area and purchased 11 acres in Brooksville, Maine, where they designed and built their own house. (i.e., with their own hands)

Jim now runs cult expert Dr. Steven Hassan’s company, Freedom of Mind, which helps individuals and families escape and heal from trauma and control by cults, while also making educational media on the topic.

Previously, Jim has been a Socially-Conscious Web Entrepreneur, run a quaint food Co-op, and founded Wise Acre – a widely distributed all-natural frozen treat company (which was wildly successful until it crashed and burned in 2008).

Contact Jim at jimpicariello@gmail.com