A 60’ documentary
Directed and produced by Elena Zervopoulou
While a local priest from a traditional village of Flores in Indonesia is celebrating his ordainment in an impressive animistic-catholic ceremony, another young man coming from that very island watches. This is what Yansen’s life will turn in a few short years… Studying theology in Rome to become a missionary priest for migrants, Yansen is stuck in a dilemma that will define the rest of his life. Will he choose religion or will he choose a wife? His own ordainment ritual in Flores has yet to come…
Torn between two worlds, Yansen’s journey unfolds between Flores and Rome, between the joyful fulfillment of an objective and the effort to attain it, between flowers and knives, just as in the ritual.
A character driven documentary shot between Italy (Rome) and Indonesia (Bali, Flores, Sulawesi) over a 2 years period. It has a certain value in terms of visual anthropology as it includes two rarely documented traditional ordainment ceremonies with catholic-animistic elements in the Mangarai area of Flores (near Ruteng). It also gives an insight into the intercultural community of Rome through its engagement in catholic church, with interesting, culturally integrated by each community, religious ceremonies
