Praying the Hours

AN EVENING OF FILM, SPIRIT, & STORY FEATURING THE WORLD PREMIERE SCREENING OF PRAYING THE HOURS

PANEL DISCUSSION INCLUDING:

LAURALEE FARRER (DIRECTOR, PRAYING THE HOURS)
KUTTER CALLOWAY (FULLER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY)
TODD PICKETT (BIOLA UNIVERSITY)

About None, The Story of the Mournful Songwriter

Praying the Hours is the latest project from Laurlee Farrar, President of Burning Heart Productions. Farrer is the principal filmmaker behind the award-winning documentary Laundry and Tosca (2004) and the feature-length documentary The Fair Trade (2008). Farrer was writer/director of the feature narrative Not That Funny (2011) starring Tony Hale and in development on Regarding the Holidays (2013), and Praying the Hours (2013). Much of the material from which her directing and screenwriting voice emerges comes from freelance work for humanitarian organizations that have taken her worldwide. She lived in a Benedictine community in Denver, Colorado for three years—a providential experience that formed much of the basis for her current book Praying the Hours in Ordinary Life (Cascade Books, 2010) and the current film project, Praying the Hours. In 2011 she was named Artist-in-Residence at the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts which is part of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA.

The core of the Praying the Hours project is based on the ancient practice of fixed-hour prayer observed by the Abrahamic faith traditions. By personifying each hour into a character, Farrer tells the story of a 24-hour day as if the hours were a community of friends. The Traveling Man (our everyman) is hit by a car. Over the time that he takes to cross over from this life into the next, he visits with each of eight friends and sees his own life anew from the lens of eternity—not as something that happens to you after you die, but as the river that flows under the surface of ordinary life. The project is based on a true story.

The Praying the Hours project is composed of two parts: a narrative feature and eight 30-minute short films. The narrative feature of Praying the Hours tells the journey of the Traveling Man from this life into the next as he is summoned by friends with whom he has surprising, unresolved business. In the eight 30-minute segments that accompany the feature, the extended Praying the Hours project investigates the lives of each of his friends more deeply, using their stories to consider each of the ancient hours of prayer from a new perspective. Thoughtful Cinema will showcase None, The Story of the Mournful Songwriter (film #6) in its world premiere at the annual Torrey Conference.

The purpose of this ambitious project is to observe a life from the perspective of both chronos (clock time) and kairos (grace time) and to consider that time itself is a breviary—or book of prayer. If so, to ignore its daily, extravagant inspirations is to suffer misalignment with our deepest selves.

About the Praying the Hours Film Project

For more information, check out the Praying the Hours Website.

About Thoughtful Cinema
Thoughtful Cinema is about encountering big ideas through film. For more information, check out www.thoughtfulcinema.com (coming soon).

Co-sponsored by CMA & CCT

Biola Students Receive 2 Torrey Conference Credits

Rachel Dee
562-777-4081
rachel.dee@biola.edu