Posts by lauralee
Praying the Hours Finds Its Festival Groove
This last week was a banner week for Praying the Hours. We signed our formal, global contract with Heritage Films in Australia, and we seem to have finally found our festival groove. As some of you will remember, last year every film festival to which we applied in the US (with one exception, Port Townsend…
Read MoreFilms Connect Us
One of the beautiful things about putting a film out into the world and then giving it whatever reach you can muster is that you widen your circle of friends among some eclectic groups of people around the world. This week we heard that Praying the Hours was accepted into the Iconic Images Film Festival…
Read More“Praying the Hours” wins its first award!
It’s been a minit since we updated, so here are a few pieces of random news: we have applied a different tack with our submissions to film festivals—focusing online rather than in-person, where we have been told that a 3+ hour film is tough to program. That seems to be bearing fruit, at least here…
Read MoreWelcome to WONDER
It’s been a minute since I last posted a Praying the Hours update. First, big news: we have a distributor! We’ve been working with Heritage Films (aka Movies Change People) over the last couple of months on all the “deliverables” necessary for them to find our international audience. Helmed by Rod Hopping, Heritage—and Rod—are old…
Read MoreWalking the Cinematic Path Together
That’s how Janette Force put it, director of the Port Townsend Film Festival, on her last year running one of the most robust, innovative, and gleefully exuberant fests I’ve ever been part of: “So grateful for this walk on the cinematic path together, my dear.” PTFF graciously allowed us to link through to the interview…
Read MoreStories Need Time to Find Their Audiences
We’ve all had the experience of a story heard in childhood coming back to adult memory with a sudden “aha.” Sometimes stories need time to percolate, time to find the listeners who are looking for them, time to ripen. A film made by many in the Burning Heart Productions extended team (though not by this…
Read MoreFinding the Audience That’s Looking for “Praying the Hours” (pt. 2)
Months ago, just as we finished “final cut” of Praying the Hours, I wrote about anticipating the process of finding its audience. Right now, as this post is being written, Praying the Hours is part of the 2021 Port Townsend Film Festival’s virtual program. “Virtual” is a key word in this case, as Director Janette…
Read MoreThe Hour of Compline: The moon has risen. We enter the night rest.
This is the last in a series of eight reflections on the Hours of prayer, focusing on Compline—the end of the day when we are ready for bed. This series celebrates the release of the Praying the Hours soundtrack by Lolo Meares. An excerpt from the soundtrack starts the post so that you can have…
Read MoreThe Hour of Vespers: Sundown. We gather together.
This is the seventh in a series of eight reflections on the Hours of prayer, focusing on Vespers, the bookend “hinge Hour” to the sunrise of Lauds, when the sun sets. This series celebrates the release of the Praying the Hours soundtrack by Lolo Meares. An excerpt from the soundtrack starts the post so that…
Read MoreThe Hour of None: Shadows grow. No one lives forever.
This is the sixth in a series of eight reflections on the Hours of prayer, focusing on None, the afternoon Hour when the shadows lengthen. This series celebrates the release of the Praying the Hours soundtrack by Lolo Meares. An excerpt from the soundtrack starts the post so that you can have her sonic imagination…
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