Novena
Directed by award-winning filmmaker Anna Rodgers, who has made numerous LGBT films which have been distributed internationally, Novena captures an unusual event in Catholic Ireland.
The Solemn Novena is an annual 9 day festival of faith at St. Joseph’s Redemptorists Church, Dundalk. Each year the festival is attended by thousands, coming from the local area and the surrounding towns and counties. In the 2012 St. Gerard Majella Novena, the festival director, Father Michael Cusack, invited Stephen Vaughan and Kay Ferreter to address the congregation about their experiences of being gay and lesbian in Ireland and feeling excluded by Catholic doctrine. This short film documents this event, capturing their powerful speech and one priest’s aspiration of a more inclusive church.
Novena was completed through crowd-funding on the website Fund:It. It won Best Documentary at the Kerry Film Festival 2013, Best Film & Television at GALAS 2014 and was joint winner of Spirit Of The Festival at GAZE LGBT Film Festival 2013.
With kind permission of Anna Rodgers.
Credits: Directed by Anna Rodgers Produced by Anna Rodgers & Hugh Rodgers Edited by Patrick Hodgins & Hugh Rodgers Filmed by Kate McCullough & Eleanor Bowman Music by A Winged Victory For The Sullen.
