Behind the Monastery Walls


(Pravoslavie.ru) - The monastery is the sacred home of God, but also home to the nuns and monks who have dedicated their lives to God. Romania’s monasteries are known worldwide for their magnificent beauty, but what do we know about the people that live there? How different is the life they lead? How different is the way they see the world?

Behind the Monastery Walls presents a selection of intimate and inspiring interviews in which nuns and monks in Romanian monasteries lay bare their thoughts and real beliefs.

Behind the Monastery Walls is one Orthodox Christian's graduation film from the BA in Media Production program at Coventry University. Having received a scholarship from the Peter Kirk Memorial Fund supported by the European Parliament he produced 2 short documentaries which talks about monastic life in Romania (Behind the Monastery Walls) and in England (Sisters in Love).

Comments

  1. UnknownSeptember 22, 2015 at 3:47 PM

    Two quick comments, as I started watching. First, the director, producer, and narrator is a woman (Brindusa Ioana Nastasa, from the end credits to which I jumped to check), thus a she and not a he.

    Second, even though the translation is part of the movie itself (not third party), it occasionally leaves something to be desired - as, for example, when one of the nuns refers to the spiritual life as a struggle using the word 'frumoasa.' Although that literally means 'beautiful,' it is translated as 'pleasant' and I think that misses something (I can see the beauty of the struggle, but, at least for me in my sinfulness, it is certainly not always pleasant).

    Fr. Peter

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  2. matushka constantinaSeptember 29, 2015 at 6:38 AM

    I really liked this documentary. I thought the dialogue captured in the documentary was very spiritually rich while being simple and applicable. I especially liked it when one nun said that if she were born one thousand times she would make the same choice each time and choose the monastic life. What a beautiful testament to the angelic life!

    Thank you for sharing it.

    ReplyDelete

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