Three adventurous SFU filmmakers will embark upon the world’s most famous spiritual pilgrimage route, the Camino de Santiago, this September.
The trek will take current SFU film student Will Ross, and SFU film alumni Devan Scott and Daniel Jeffery two months and approximately 800 kilometres to complete on foot, and it will all be recorded for their film documentary titled, We Three Heathens.
The film will focus on the essence of a universal spirituality that exists in all individuals, regardless of their religious beliefs. Ross said of the pilgrimage, “I think people go because we are all attracted to the idea of self-realization and self discovery. To an extent, I think we all want to be able to change. The pilgrimage is a physical actualization of that journey.”
The Camino de Santiago is known as The Way of Saint James in English, and is composed of a large network of pilgrim routes across Europe. These routes all come together at the tomb of St. James, who was one of Jesus’ twelve apostles and is the patron saint of Spain. The main pilgrimage route follows an early Roman trade route, which visitors first followed to the shrine in the ninth century.
The Way of Saint James was a popular pilgrimage in medieval times and is still well traveled today, drawing thousands of pilgrims from all around the world. The several stops that comprise the tour make it a perfect setting for Ross, Scott, and Jeffery to directly observe how people connect with their religion and spirituality.
“We are expecting to meet a lot of different people from different countries and different walks of life,” Ross said. “I know we will find small communities who have been supporting this pilgrimage for generations.”
“It’s frightening, but I tend to gain the most from frightening experiences.”
– Devan Scott, SFU Alumnus
Preparing for the journey is no easy feat, as all three filmmakers will be walking the equivalent of a half marathon a day. To improve their fitness, the team is currently going on long physical walks with their equipment on their backs.
They are also promoting their Indiegogo crowdsourcing campaign in order to raise funds for better filming equipment for the trip. “The community response has been very positive,” Scott told The Peak. “I was initially concerned that such an idiosyncratic and personal little project would be greeted with a chorus of confusion and general skepticism, but the opposite has been true; we’ve received great input and encouragement from the community around us.”
The three hope the film itself will be a thought provoking and interesting one, as it is being told through the unique perspective of secular individuals.
Ross also hopes that this documentary will bend the structure of a formulaic travelogue — the team will have no camera crew, and all of the filming will be grounded in first-hand personal experience, with each individual’s perspective shining through in the storytelling.
Scott said, “The whole affair of crafting a feature-length documentary out of three separate personal experiences is a task both daunting and incredibly enticing; it is [. . .] completely within my wheelhouse and totally alien to me.”
He continued, “It’s frightening, but I tend to gain the most from frightening experiences.”
As for what he hopes to gain from the journey, Ross said, “I want to come out of it with a deeper, sympathetic understanding of what attracts people to religion, and the common ground [of beliefs] that everyone shares.”
