By Mark Pattison
The famed 805km Camino trek from southern France to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, takes pilgrims about a month or a bit more, depending on the pace, the pilgrim’s fitness, any hurts sustained along the way, sightseeing and the like.
But bringing a film about the Camino to viewers took filmmaker Lydia Smith five years.
Smith did her filming in the spring of 2009 on a shoestring budget of $30,000. Since then, she’s racked up $150,000 in debt for all the editing, postproduction and publicity needs surrounding her documentary, Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago.
She thought she had a deal with PBS to air her film in late 2011, but that would have required $85,000 in what Smith called “airing fees” that she didn’t have.
Smith rented a bus that’s taken her from coast to coast, starting in Portland, Oregon, and working its way east. Her hope was to raise enough money in each city where she stopped to help pay for the costs of screening a film in the next city on the itinerary.
In New York City, it cost $9,000 to rent one screen for one week to show Walking the Camino.
Smith, in a question-and-answer presentation after a preview in Washington, where all three screens at a DC Cineplex were showing Walking the Camino, said she had walked the Camino herself in 2008.
When she went back a year later, she filmed a large number of pilgrims making the trek.
“Some of them you love, some of them not so much. But when you see them in Santiago at the end, you love them again,” she said.
She filmed more wayfarers than the 84-minute documentary could accommodate, and would otherwise have been on the cutting-room floor. But, in today’s media environment, “now they’re called the bonus pilgrims”, Smith said, referring to a separate DVD she offers for sale with walkers and images not in the movie.
When Smith “made the Camino”, in the parlance of those who have gone on the journey, she did so as a pilgrim, not as an advance scout for making a documentary some time in the future. In fact, she added, she resisted that idea. “It was so sacred to me,” she said.
Others voiced their concerns that so many would see Walking the Camino that it would be overrun with Americans. “Americans can be some of the worst people,” Smith admitted, “but they make some of the nicest pilgrims.”
It turned out that when she was convinced to make the movie, she found out someone else was making his own film about the Camino: Emilio Estevez, directing his father, Martin Sheen, in the feature film The Way, which was released in 2011.
“We were both looking for financing,” Smith said. “They got the funding. I didn’t.” Smith, however, made a stop in Washington in February 2011 as Sheen and Estevez came to Georgetown University for a promotional preview of The Way.
Santiago de Compostela has been a pilgrimage site for the past 1,200 years when what are believed to be the remains of St James were discovered there. Some go even farther, about 130km to an ocean town called Finisterre, which means “end of the earth”, as people in those times believed the world ended at that spot.
Smith chose the pilgrims who made the final cut of Walking the Camino for their geographic diversity: American, Canadian, Portuguese, French, and a Brazilian-Briton. Though it wasn’t a prerequisite, all finished the journey; about 20 per cent of the many thousands who set out each year don’t, according to Smith. – CNS
Luna Palace Leederville will be screening WALKING THE CAMINO: SIX WAYS TO SANTIAGO from 11 June at Luna Leederville and Luna on SX.
Luna Cinemas Leederville is offering 10 e-Record readers the chance to win a double pass to see Walking the Camino.
To enter, simply email your details to editor@therecord.com.au
Camino San Francisco to provide a spiritual boost
A two-day walking pilgrimage from Northampton to Geraldton, Western Australia, will take place in early May, reflecting on the spirituality of Catholic priest and architect Monsignor John Hawes (1876–1965).
Director of Heritage for the Diocese of Geraldton, Father Robert Cross said the pilgrimage would focus around the built heritage of Mgr Hawes, whose Franciscan spirituality visibly imbues his buildings.
For more information, contact Fr Cross on 08 9921 3221 or go to http://www.monsignorhawes.com.au/camino/index.html where you can read more about the Camino and register.