ABC TV has announced it’s highly anticipated three-part observational documentary, The Abbey, is to screen from late October this year. The Abbey, a special Compass presentation and a first for Australian television, will follow five ordinary Australian women as they spend 33 days and nights living the life of an enclosed nun.
Following a challenge put forth by ABC TV in June last year, over 1000 women applied to enter The Abbey, willing to swap their car keys and wallets for prayer books and meditation. As they leave behind the hectic pace of modern day living, the women have the chance to embark upon a search for meaning, God, and the self.
The Abbey, based in a beautiful bush land setting two hours from Sydney, is home to Australia’s first enclosed monastic community, where 32 nuns have all vowed to live the Benedictine way of life. Never before has the outside world entered the cloisters of The Abbey, until they allowed ABC TV unprecedented access to film the experiment.
How will the women cope with the 4am wake-up call and the seven daily visits to The Abbey Church? Will they be able to live by the nun’s 1500 year-old Rule of Silence, Obedience, and Renunciation for over a month?
Find out what happens when these women are faced with life’s biggest questions.
The Abbey - to air on ABC TV from late October 2007.
[release from ABC TV]