Tonight the premiere of the Simon Laity/Good Film Productions’ The Donkeys & Disillusionment will be showing at the Byron Community Centre.
Donkeys & Disillusionment visualises the life stories of five pilgrims and a donkey over a six year period.
A man leaves the city, disillusioned by the lack of community and cooperation in modern society, and begins to walk the Camino de Santiago with a donkey. As he travels the ancient pilgrimage route, known simply as The Way, he crosses paths with a number of like-minded travellers from the far reaches of the globe.
Each pilgrim is in search of something more, and their similar and contrasting stories are revealed through abstract visuals and interview dialogue.
The film charts the physiological and social changes in these characters as they undertake the physically and mentally gruelling journey through the Pyrenees Mountains and on to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, northwest Spain.
Years later, the same characters are interviewed in their hometowns and we discover whether or not the pilgrimage was a catalyst for change in their lives.
The film is projected onto a screen behind musicians playing a live soundtrack, taking audiences on their own journey through story and sound to a point of revelation and discovery.
Simon Laity is a local filmmaker who studied on an awarded scholarship at SAE. He also did local productions with M Jack Bee (Mikey Bryant/Mt Warning) and Pete Murray’s Blue Sky Blue videoclip.
The team around this production are all local artists and experts collaborating on this project.
Arne Rubinstein, an expert on the theme of rites of passage is featured in the film and will be part of the Q&A after the screening. The Q&A will also include Simon and Andrew who is one of the pilgrims followed on the Camino.
