Beyond a metal grille
Inside a cloistered monastery
Nuns follow an 800-year-old religious rule.
In this film, the nuns hold the video camera
Documenting their lives
Allowing you a glimpse of monastic life.
Set within the insular realm of the Corpus Christi Monastery, Chosen (Custody of the Eyes) is a feature-length film-in-progress. Chosen will form a portrait of a young woman joining the 800-year-old Poor Clare Colettine order. “Heather”/”Sister Amata” inhabits a threshold – a space between worlds. Heather made the exodus from the Chicago suburbs. Sister Amata is in the process of becoming, evolving into a new identity.
This film is unique: It features life within one of the strictest religious orders, and it was filmed by the cloistered nuns.
Cloistered contemplative nuns remove themselves from the world in order to mediate on behalf of the rest of humanity. The nuns believe that their prayers, penances, and sacrifices can change the course of history.
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Abbie Reese was allowed by the nuns to film within the enclosure, but she wanted to see from the nuns' perspective, from their own vantage. This film follows publication last year of Abbie's book, Dedicated to God: An Oral History of Cloistered Nuns, by Oxford University Press.
Chosen will offer a glimpse of monastic life as well as the internal journey, through video diaries, of a young woman becoming a cloistered nun. Abbie met Heather in 2005. The college student was discerning if she had been called to religious life. Over the next six years, Abbie and Heather met for oral history interviews about the discernment process.
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In 2011, Heather joined the Corpus Christi Monastery in Rockford. A year later, she became "Sister Amata." (Both names are aliases she selected to reflect the Poor Clare Colettine value of anonymity.)
Because of Sister Amata's proficiency as a visual artist and Abbie's philosophy of co-authorship and shared authority, Abbie sought and obtained permission to lend her a video camera. Sister Amata filmed video diaries, sharing her experiences and motivations. Other nuns became interested in documenting monastic life, so Abbie lent a second camera.
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All of the footage is recorded. The video is sincere, playful, and self-reflexive; it reveals a glimpse into this radical life of those who have set apart – chosen.
Editing is underway.
The soundtrackOriginal songs, written and performed by the nuns in Rockford, have just been recorded digitally to be included in the soundtrack for
Chosen. (The nuns first shared their work by tape cassette, seen below.)
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* The asterisk next to some of the perks (at right) denotes titles of "practices of virtues" penned by Mother Mary Veronica, founder of two communities of Poor Clare Colettine nuns (in Cleveland, Ohio and Chicago). The “Poor Soul Cards" were published in 1908 and are still observed by the nuns in Rockford today.
