Religion

Portraits of pilgrims en route for Santiago

Santiago de Compostela... the Saintly Apostle at the end of the earth, or ´finis terrae´ in Latin, tending these lands of the setting sun, the asset known as the West which, thanks to the Council of Europe, has just been acknowledged as the destination of the ´first European itinerary´. A pilgrimage which, at the outset, could seem outdated to us, belonging to another time, and having no link to our own era. However, it can still ´mobilize´, despite the disparate and out-of-place nature of those included within this verb, tens of thousands of pilgrims, in contemplation and perseverance every year. And this has been the case for the past 1,000 years. 1993 is a holy year, because the Saint´s day, July 25, falls on a Sunday. Around half-a-million faithful are expected that day in Santiago. In these times of high-speed trains, and the cult of speed dear to Virilio, it seemed crucial to us to explore this millennial route, a slow route whose paths have thus been trodden deep. This film is a road movie of the third genre, where the archaic and the up-to-date meet.