Hermits around the web – Hermitary
news, sites, and pages of interest about hermits and solitude
Edward A. Burger, producer of Amongst White Clouds 2005), has now produced The Mountain Path (2021). The earlier film documented Burger’s visit to the Zhongnan Mountains of China in search of Zen Buddhist hermits. The recent film uses footage from the first film with a new focus: “My search for a hermit Zen master in China.” Produced by One Mind Productions, 2021. Two+ minute trailer.
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The publication El Tiemp de Colombia reports the death of a hermit, the Polish-born priest Ignatius Jarosz. Fr. Jarosz was consecrated a priest in 1959 at the age of twenty-five. He became a Redemptorist Order priest twenty-five years later, leaving Poland for Czechoslovakia, then Brazil,Argentina, andColombia. He lived as a hermit in the Dagua Mountains of Colombia, on the Pacific side, halfway betweenthecitiesof Cali and Buenaventura. Althouigh known as an afable person among many religious who knew him, Fr. Jarosz never ventured beyond his residence in the mountains.
Daily Mail (UK) among other popular media reports on Masafumi Nagasaki, now 87 year old. Masafumi lived as a hermit on the Japanese island of Sotobanari for nearly 29 years and when discovered by popular media was dubbed the “naked hermit” because he had lost his clothes during a typhoon. A number of films and documentaries on Masafumi exist over the years. The Japanese government eventually obliged Masafumi to vacate the island , placing him in public housing in the city of Ishigaki. His return to Sotobanari was a farewell visit.
Tokyo Lens presents “24Hours with a Japanese Hermit in a Hidden Village” posted to YouTube (see below). Norm Nakamura (“Tokyo Lens”) climbs a lush green mountain to visit with the hermit. We learn the hermit’s story, about a little-known phantom village — and bears.
URL: https://youtu.be/z4Bze9T27kw
In May 2022, the Edinburgh International Children’s Festival presented the play “Hermit,” a nonverbal mime performance. The Festival has posted a one-minute trailer and this description:
“There is a square. Is it a house? There is sound. What happens inside? A lid opens. Is there something inside? What is inside? Who is inside?
Hermit is an original, visual, funny and moving performance about being alone and coming home.
With a background in music theatre and modern mime, Simone de Jong creates work based around music, movement and imagination, with performances which appeal to the multiple senses of its young audience, in a secretive way.”