Dec 24, 2024
Dec 12,2024
Filmed with unique access over five years, Chasing The Light is a cinematic feature documentary that tells the remarkable story of a half-blind Englishman’s quest to build a spiritual haven on the cliffs of West Cork that would become the world-renowned Dzogchen Beara.
Ahead of its release in cinemas nationwide on Friday 13th December 2024, director Maurice O’Brien talks about the inspiration behind the film.
In November 2018, completely burned out from finishing a long work project, I travelled to one of the remotest corners of Ireland to take part in a week-long silent meditation retreat at Dzogchen Beara, at the far end of the Beara peninsula. I had never done anything like it before and had no real idea what to expect.
The first thing that blew me away was the incredible beauty of the landscape and the endless horizon where the sea met the sky, a meditation in itself.
Watch the trailer for Chasing The Light
I was also struck by the sheer variety of the other people on the retreat – some of whom had travelled from the US and the UK to attend. We were all seeking some kind of escape, striving to find some hint of peace from the noise inside, and maybe even learn to be kinder to both ourselves and the people around us.
And though I had travelled here to escape from work, I soon realised that I simply had to make a film about this place.
I was even more taken with the story of the man who founded the centre – Peter Cornish, who had travelled to Ireland in the 1970s to follow his dream to create a spiritual refuge for people of all religions and none. Peter was now apparently living as a hermit and, following the death of his beloved wife Harriet, rarely came out in public.
Convincing Peter to tell his full story on camera for the first time was a huge step. For both myself and the film’s extraordinary producer Clare Stronge, gaining Peter’s trust and getting to know him for the wise, funny and kind man that he was, became the biggest privilege of making the film.
Another key element of the story was that the community at the Centre were in the early stages of building an authentic Tibetan Buddhist temple right on the edge of the cliff, the first of its kind in Ireland.
The first thing that blew me away was the incredible beauty of the landscape and the endless horizon where the sea met the sky, a meditation in itself.
But the aspect of the film that proved more challenging even than the Covid-induced production delays was how we would cover the downfall of the centre’s spiritual director, and the stunned community’s continued attempts to recover from the fallout.
In 1994 Peter had signed Dzogchen Beara and his lands over to a charitable trust and appointed the renowned Buddhist teacher Sogyal Rinpoche – author of the bestselling Tibetan Book of Living and Dying – as the centre’s spiritual director. Thanks to his book, Sogyal Rinpoche’s celebrity had grown until he became the best known Buddhist in the West after the Dalai Lama, and his organisation Rigpa opened dozens of centres around the world.
But in 2017 Sogyal’s worldwide empire had come crashing down when a group of his inner students revealed him to be a serial abuser of vulnerable women. It’s been described as the biggest crisis to hit Tibetan Buddhism since it came to the West.
For the still devoted community in Dzogchen Beara, West Cork, it was an existential crisis and an enormously painful chapter in their story.
We have tried to tell a nuanced story which does not shy away from the dark side of this and which explores the complexity that arises when spiritual devotion meets the reality of the human condition.
And ultimately I feel it is a story of hope – because in a modern world full of distractions and noise, Peter’s quest to establish "a place to escape from the madness of the world" still provides solace to hundreds of people each year.
Six years after we began, the film had its world premiere at an emotional and sold out screening at Cork Film Festival this November, where it played in competition for Best New Irish Feature.
We’re delighted that Eclipse Films are bringing the film to cinemas around the country this December – as this is a film that is widescreen in both its story and visuals and which we would love audiences to see on the big screen.
Director Maurice O’Brien and producer Clare Stronge will participate in a Q&A after the opening night screening of Chasing the Light at the Irish Film Institute on Friday 13th December. The film will also be screening at Arc Cinema and Omniplex Mahon Point in Cork, the Eye Cinema in Galway, and Lighthouse Cinema in Dublin from 13th December, and in Queen’s Film Theatre, Belfast from 27th December 2024.
