The Abbey (1 Viewer)

[persephone]

The ABC is casting for a new reality (kinda) series called

The Abbey

Imagine a world offering peace and tranquillity, and you're there to contemplate the deeper side of life....no blaring phones, no family dramas, no frustrating work… just you and your desire to discover life's meaning.

Sounds too good to be true? Welcome to The Abbey.

ABC TV is looking for five women for a new 3 part series. Take up the challenge to live the life of a contemplative nun for 33 days and nights - one day for every year of Christ's life.

You will leave behind the hurly-burly of modern life to embark upon a search for meaning, spirituality and self behind the walls of an enclosed order.

Immerse yourself in the world of The Abbey and live by The Rule of Silence and Obedience. Take a leap of faith and discover things about yourself and life that you never knew. Learn what the spirit of community living is all about as you share the nuns daily routine of prayer, farm work, craft and domestic tasks. Throughout the challenge of living in this other world, you will have a Sister-mentor to listen, support and guide you.

Will this life hold any relevance to you as a contemporary Australian woman? Will spiritual contemplation and prayer have the power to transform your life or will you find it too hard a cross to bear?

 

[persephone]

from here.

Reality TV peers into the cloisters
Thursday Jun 15 14:03 AEST
In reality TV, it's about as far from Big Brother as you can possibly get.

Five women are taking a leap of faith by spending 33 days and nights living as nuns in a rural monastery.

Surrounded by nuns, they will experience a life dictated by rules of silence and obedience, rising early for days of prayer, away from family and the trappings of the civilised world.

"The nuns have already been joking about calling it Big Sister," laughs Varcha Sidwell, the mastermind of ABC TV's latest project, The Abbey.




"When I first proposed the idea they looked at me like 'You aren't talking reality TV are you?', but over time they have warmed to it," said Sidwell, who will produce and direct the three-part series for ABC's Compass program.

While the location is being kept under wraps, filming will begin on August 29 in "rural Australia".

Sidwell is seeking five women willing to learn about community living, sharing the Catholic nuns' lives of continuous prayer, cooking, cleaning, farm work and craft-making.

"This is unlike reality television, in the sense that the nuns themselves are creating the 33-day program," Sidwell said from her home in Tasmania.

"We are not devising what the women are doing every day. The teaching will come from the ancient traditions the nuns apply to their own lives."

The highs and lows of the women will be captured on film.

"The big thing at the monastery is when you take away all the normal distractions of your life, you are left with you, and it can be extremely confronting and sometimes hard to take to," Sidwell said.

Sidwell admits the nuns "definitely had reservations" when she first approached them.

Their participation largely depended on Sidwell's own connection with the community, which started more than a decade ago. She converted to Catholicism eight years ago.

Sidwell stresses you won't find Sister Act or the Flying Nun within the community.

"Before I went into the community I had all these idea of what nuns were, that they were sinister," Sidwell explains.

"But when I met them they were not closed off and dried up, they are full of life. They are also very connected to the world in the way that most of us aren't."

Applicants must be older than 18, but women will be considered regardless of their background.

"They (nuns) had a past too, they weren't born nuns," Sidwell said.

"The nuns would really like it if each of the women brings a whole different cultural, social, age and background that members of the audience can relate to, or least get a sense of."

The program is expected to screen early next year and is a co-production between Sidwell as an independent film maker, Screen Tasmania and the ABC.

Geraldine Doogue, host of ABC TV's Compass, is enthusiastic about the project.

"Every now and then, a really bold, creative idea emerges which you know, with every bone in your body, will yield fruit like nothing before it. The Abbey is one such idea."

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My friend's reply to her suggestion that the dates of production should be changed

Thanks for your interest in The Abbey. The dates are set and unfortunately, whenever they are, it'll always be bad timing for some people! Hopefully someone in your group will have a window of opportunity.
Best wishes
The Abbey Production Team