Of This Parish (2014)

Of This Parish is a film essay that follows St. Anthony on a journey from a church tower to the threshold at which its bells can be heard. The film is both a sonic portrait of the Parish of Sul and a meditation on the changing role of bells in a rural community.

The film evolved out of residency undertaken by liminal (Frances Crow and myself) in 2013 at Binaural Nodar in Sul, Portugal. We had gone to with the intention of creating a performance installation of the same name, which you can read more about on the liminal website here: https://www.liminal.org.uk/portfolio/of-this-parish/. Uncharacteristically, the installation took less time than we’d imagined and I began working on this film. The majority of the filming and field recording was completed during that residency but the essay format, text, editing and sound design emerged back in the UK over the following year. I then returned once to Sul to complete filming and record Luís Costa’s voiceover. The film follows St. Anthony on a journey from a church tower to the threshold at which its bells can be heard.

Of This Parish premiered at The Little Theatre in Bath in 2014 and has since been screened around the world at numerous film festivals. For further details and full credits, see: https://www.liminal.org.uk/portfolio/of-this-parish-a-film/