In a year when nearly one in three U.S. adolescents aged 12 to 17 report a mental, emotional, developmental, or behavioral challenge, an Oklahoma-shot coming-of-age adventure is meeting families where they are—on the big screen and beyond. Better Together, the award-winning family film from director Kyle Roberts, follows six teens ignited by tragedy as they race into the wilderness to find a legendary landmark, solve clues, confront danger, and face the darkness inside themselves. Starring Gattlin Griffith (The Boys), Bart Johnson (High School Musical), Ricardo Hurtado (School of Rock), Giselle Torres (The Villains of Valley View), LaRonn Marzett, Katie Burgess, and Juan Graterol, the film hit theaters nationwide May 15–June 1 (with select markets opening May 10). It arrives backed by a partnership with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline and a companion Bible study curriculum and leadership guide designed to spark the conversations families need.
AMFM Magazine’s Paul Salfen sat down with Faith Channel CEO and distributor John Stewart to talk about why this particular story landed at exactly the right moment.
Stewart and Faith Channel Distribution came onto Better Together late in the process. Filmmaker Kyle Roberts, a friend of Stewart’s with a clear heart for youth, had already run a Fathom event that underperformed—partly because it landed the week after a massive Taylor Swift theatrical release that sucked up the cultural oxygen. “It took the mindshare of that group,” Stewart explained. Faith Channel stepped in with limited theatrical re-bookings to re-spark the title and is now rolling the film onto major streaming platforms. Shot just north of Dallas in Oklahoma, the movie is “a really great high school tale” aimed at a demographic that Christian content has often overlooked.
What Stewart hopes audiences walk away with is simple and urgent: the recognition that the pressures facing today’s teens—social media, peer pressure, isolation—are real, and that hope is possible when people stop walking alone. Timed for Mental Health Awareness Month, the film mixes adventure and humor with hard-hitting emotional honesty. “It’s a real raw story… pointing back to Jesus, but also a real true negotiating of life today for a young adult,” Stewart said. Roberts has framed the project the same way: “It’s a beautiful thing to see teens and families walk out of theaters with a renewed sense of hope… We are not alone. We are Better Together.”
That philosophy mirrors the larger mission of Faith Channel itself. The platform began as technology serving churches and ministries, then evolved into a free, ad-supported streaming service deliberately built without a paywall so the content could reach the world. “If we really want to do that, we can’t put it behind a paywall,” Stewart noted. Last year the company lit up Faith Channel Productions, shot its first feature (Christmas at the Cabin in Breckenridge), and expanded aggressively into distribution. The company is currently managing roughly $15 million in product and licensing indie Christian titles worldwide with one driving goal: get filmmakers their money back so they can keep creating.
Stewart’s own path to this work is a study in long obedience. After the military and early web work in the secular tech boom of 1990s Seattle, a word he received as a new believer—“He would use the skills He’s given me in technology and the web to reach the world for Christ”—kept resurfacing through company sales, layoffs, and rebuilds. That word eventually led him to build Faith Network for churches, then Faith Channel, then the production and distribution arms that now champion films like Better Together. His advice to anyone wanting to create faith-rooted content is the same counsel that has carried him: “Listen to God, and then persevere… Do more than you think is humanly possible, but depend on God.”
The path illuminated under his feet, he says, is the image he returns to daily—taking the next clear step without needing to see the whole road. For families looking for the same kind of practical hope this month, Better Together is that next step. Support it in theaters while it’s still playing, stream it when it arrives, and visit FaithChannel.com (there’s a content-creators link and a direct helpline) if you have stories of your own that need a home.
As Stewart put it, the door for quality Christian entertainment is opening wider than it has in years. Films like this one are why it matters that we walk through it—together.
