Scattered across the Canadian plains are small enclaves of a pietist religious sect known as Hutterites. I caught the film “Born Hutterite on IFC or Bravo. An extreme Mennonite sect, Hutterites believe that salvation is only possible within their few enclaves.

The documentary follows the lives of former Hutterites. Like other strict Mennonite sects, Hutterites severely curtail education and contact with the outside world, believing that such things would make their children too worldly. With limited social skills and substandard education, most emigres find themselves unable to function in the wider world. Completely cut off from their support networks, most either end up dead, in jail, or return to the Hutterite colonies to live as despised second-class citizens.

Perhaps the most successful former Hutterite is author Samuel Hofer. With only an eighth grade education, Hofer sells his several Hutterite-themed books out of the back of his run-down car, trekking between sparse northern plains towns. Hofer’s successful struggle to find a life on his own is balanced by his near poverty, his stark loneliness, and his constant longing for a community he cannot (and would not) ever return to.

“Born Hutterite” explains the struggles of leaving fundamentalism as no other film I’ve ever seen. Required viewing.