We have just completed the short documentary Upon this Rock from the footage shot during our research trip last September. You can watch the extended trailer here. It has been conceived as a prologue for The Stylite. We hope to use it to raise interest in the feature length project and the film will soon be making its rounds on the festival circuit.
Upon this Rock documents a day in the life around the pillar starting with a special midnight mass for the feast of St. Simeon, the first known Stylite. Thanks to the cooperation of Father Maxim and the rest of the monks that live and work at the St. Simeon monastery we were able to capture their life with nearly total access.
The Stylite is a much more ambitious project and is being developed as an experimental documentary in which we hope to create through sound design and choreographed camera movement a film that resembles an ancient palimpsest in which Father Maxim's story and that of an unseen traveler drawn to the pillar from the city overlay one another. The traveler will not be shown on screen, but rather the audience will experience the story through the traveler's experiences.
Work continues in earnest, and we hope to begin principal photography as soon as major funding is secured.
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