Faith and cinema, all on retreat

I AM NOT baptized, but have been searching for three or four years. Classic Christian retreats impressed me a lot until one day, in 2023, I discovered on the Internet that a charity home near me was offering a “cinema retreat”.

Seeing one film a day with a group would perhaps prevent me from feeling lost, I supposed… » Véronique Tirel, 64 years old, would never have imagined embarking on such an adventure, and yet she came out enthusiastic about it. her first six-day session and repeated the experience in 2024. What did she find so unique?

“I discovered that cinema, like literature, is a good vehicle for reaching deep within oneself, provided you have good support. »

A formula imagined by a religious film buff

The number of these new type of retreats, first offered at the Jesuit center of Toulouse (Haute-Garonne) and at the Foyer de charité de Roquefort-les-Pins (Alpes-Maritimes), has seen a marked increase since the end of Covid-19. It was an Xavierian nun and film buff, Geneviève Roux, who imagined the formula in 2010.

An expert in image analysis, she relied on Ignatian spirituality to accompany her audience while deciphering art films. Since then, “the model has been deployed throughout France thanks to a team of lay people trained by Geneviève Roux,” indicates Anne Dagallier, cinema mission manager at the Conference of Bishops of France. The proposals have doubled in four years. Spiritual centers and abbeys are increasingly in demand.”

Retreatants are invited to react after the screening

Regardless of the location, the daily framework is always the same. After the screening, the presenters invite the audience to react to a sequence of the film in order to identify the emotions, feelings and thoughts that it has aroused in everyone. Together, they draw spiritual threads.

Then the retreatants discover five texts (three from the Old and New Testaments and two from philosophers, novelists, poets) from which they are invited to pray. “As in festivals, it happens that people far from the Church show up to follow our retreats over one, three or six days,” comments Diane Falque, who herself regularly leads this type of session at the Hautmont Spiritual Center ( North).

A strong link between art and the spiritual

“Cinema is an art of unveiling and revelation which brings out the spiritual in the sensitive. It can resonate with the Gospel and allows us to ask ourselves the big questions of life,” confides Anne-Cécile Antoni, host of cinema Saturdays in Montpellier.

This strong link between art and life, Jean-François Stellio, 67 years old, practicing Catholic, experienced it for the first time in 2023, with his wife Caroline: “The five films screened as part of our retreat joined all the theme of hope. The movie Roubaix, a light, by Arnaud Desplechin (2019), represented a real trigger, allowing me to identify certain blockages in my spiritual life. In this fiction, the character of Daoud, head of the local police played by Roschdy Zem, looks at others with hope. This look of love is the one that Jesus has on each of us and which makes us all grow,” confides the retiree.

For his wife Caroline, “the discussions around the feature film The Repentants, by Iciar Bollain (2021, Spanish film inspired by a true story, Editor’s note) were overwhelming. I was struck by the strength of the heroine, capable of going beyond her suffering to listen to her husband’s killers. In the film, it is not about Christian forgiveness, but about the ability to forgive.”

An ecumenical jury present in Cannes every year

In order to develop their programming, the presenters most often draw on the selections of the ecumenical jury present in Cannes each year (The Pilgrim n° 7383) . The organizers are keen on the diversity of the films shown, which are not catechetical: “During these retreats, people with different religious practices coexist and who appreciate this openness to the world.”

Getting participants to discuss in a friendly manner around a situation, a dialogue or a character portrayed in a film is also what Véronique Tirel appreciated: “It’s so beautiful to listen to the reactions of the each other. Some draw threads from their faith, others from their personal experience. This makes progress in all cases. And then I couldn’t believe the quality of the film analysis of the animators who detail the slightest light, the slightest camera movement.

Beyond emotion

Another subject of astonishment common to most of the retreatants interviewed: the possibility of praying from a film. “For a work to become an object of meditation, the viewer must manage to let their immediate emotion settle in order to leave room for a more distanced view. This allows everyone to understand what moved them and what this reveals to them about themselves,” explains Father Luc Forestier, vicar in a parish in Lille and theologian. “I sometimes engage in such analyzes during exchanges of biblical readings, for example. But the ideal setting seems to me to be these times of retreat where silence and meditation do their work. »

Véronique Tirel savored these suspended moments: “Apart from exchanges with the group, we remain in silence and can of course attend the services. This allows you to sit down, to write, in short to think calmly. Which is not always the case when you leave the cinema in the city. »

Meditate on cinematographic works

“To meditate on a film, I concentrate on a scene like that of a gospel. I look at the landscape, the action and the characters, trying to understand the way in which they experience this moment internally. A movement, a look, a face to face or even a dialogue can be eloquent,” explains Diane Falque. “How does this work speak to me in my life today? » the retreatants and companions never stop questioning themselves during these special days.

“This brought out in me a spiritual curiosity which is unfolding little by little,” says Véronique Tirel. Following this session, I decided to participate in a fraternity in which, once a month, we meet around the reading of a text. I don’t know if I will one day ask for baptism, but I am sure that this first retreat put me on the path. »

The appetite to be guided

After having tamed the resonance of a work within them during sessions of this type, volunteers offer to celebrate cinematographic creation throughout France. Ecumenical perspectives in Lyon (Rhône), Christian cinema festival in Montpellier (Hérault), diocesan festival Of men and films, in Lille (North)… the public of these events expresses the same appetite to be guided in the deciphering of films , confirms Anne-Cécile Antoni, co-responsible for the Montpellier event where the work of reading the imafes is also carried out each year for the 5,000 students of the department of Hérault.

“Cinema buff”, Diane Falque, now head of the Lille event team, had previously followed cinema retreats for five years: “This experience formed me and underpins my desire to pass on my passion to all audiences, Christian or not,” she confirms. A beautiful way to bear witness to the openness experienced during these spiritual sessions around the seventh art.