Amish doctrine requires every teenager to choose their own spiritual fate. On the day of their sixteenth birthdays, each child is given free reign to explore all the conveniences and temptations of life in the outside "English" world, during a crucial period in their lives known as Rumspringa. In an unprecedented documentary, Devil's Playground offers an unflinching look at the effects of this culture shock on such previously guileless Amish teens.
Once exposed to modern technologies like cars and cable television—along with rock concerts and keg parties—these teenagers' choice is both simple and profoundly difficult. Do they embrace the constraints of the Amish religion and rejoin the church, or do they turn away from their families and community to live on their own in our "modern" society?
When one 16 year-old boy leaves home to live on his own, the temptations of drugs and crime threaten to permanently separate him from his Amish community. Looking back on her own Rumspringa, an 18 year-old girl prepares to rejoin the church but worries about her misdeeds over the past two years.
By combining these personal stories with reflections from the Amish community, Devil's Playground presents the trials and adventures of teenage life from a surprising and moving perspective.