Director of Rutgers Documentary Film Lab Premieres Global Documentary, Utilizes Students in Upcoming Film
Academy Award-winning filmmaker works on multiple films at Rutgers-New Brunswick
"My role at Rutgers presents the same challenge as my film career – to make good work, to develop and encourage talent, to draw the best from each person."– Thomas Lennon
Thomas Lennon, an Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker and director of the Documentary Film Lab at Rutgers University–New Brunswick’s Mason Gross School of the Arts, is about to unveil a film he considers the most groundbreaking of his career.
Premiering nationwide on PBS stations on Monday, Sacred embarks on a global exploration of religious faith and spirituality as a primary human experience, revealing how people across the world turn to ritual and prayer to navigate the milestones and crises of private life.
“Today, not many people would dispute the importance of religion,” Lennon said. “But we in media usually look at it socially and politically. Here the goal is to plunge the viewer into a series of private experiences of faith, and hopefully the intensity of that encounter shakes up our reactions, triggers something fresh.”
Lennon commissioned top international filmmakers to capture more than 40 diverse stories from 25 countries – from a monk embarking on a 1,000-day walk around Mt. Hiei in Japan, to a young Muslim father from Cairo chanting the call to prayer to his baby, to coming-of-age ceremonies in Mandalay, Jerusalem and the San Carlos Apache Reservation. The film is told without narration and, for long stretches, without words at all.
Lennon’s next two documentary projects are based at Rutgers – and are being made with help from students. One project follows the Dance & Parkinson’s Movement program, in which the Mason Gross School dance department works with Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital to present movement clases for people with Parkinson’s disease.
Another will follow the life and legacy of Paul Robeson, Rutgers’ third African-American graduate and most famous alumnus, as part of Rutgers-New Brunswick’s Robeson Centennial, a commemoration of his 1919 graduation from Rutgers College – and his achievements as a scholar, athlete, artist, activist and global citizen.
“Rutgers’ Documentary Film Lab is designed to be something of a bridge between the academic world and the so-called real world the students are going to navigate,” Lennon said. “I ran a production company for years, so working with students within a film department feels new and exciting, but also familiar. My role at Rutgers presents the same challenge as my film career – to make good work, to develop and encourage talent, to draw the best from each person.”
Sacred airs Monday at 10 p.m. on PBS. The film will be available to stream the following day at pbs.org/sacred and on PBS apps.