Tokyo, Japan/ New York, New York – Continuing to ramp up its original production activity and international co-production partnerships, Japanese pay-TV broadcaster WOWOW is teaming up with New York-based WNET to produce a new crowd-sourced TV documentary titled Sacred.
WOWOW and WNET intend to make Sacred the most inclusive and comprehensive movie ever made about humankind’s search for the divine and to take viewers on a spectacular journey through 365 days of spiritual life on Earth.
Using crowd sourced footage from around the globe, the final film will be a tapestry of footage depicting life’s sacred moments from viewers’ points of view, including major religious holidays in big cities around the world, birthdays, ‘coming of age’ ceremonies, weddings, pilgrimages, rites of passage, trips to holy or beautiful places, personal celebrations, prayers, rituals, song, dance, family traditions, something beautiful, uplifting, and unique, and any moment that can be called sacred.
The companies opted for a crowd sourced film because they want it to be personal, up-close and from the audiences’ point of view – a truer encapsulation of what is sacred – and something traditional filmmaking could not capture.
WOWOW will serve as co-producer of the documentary and oversee shooting in Japan and Asia. Executive producers of the documentary are the president emeritus of WNET, William Baker, WNET Vice President, Stephen Segaller, and 84th Academy Award nominee for short documentary, Julie Anderson (God is the Bigger Elvis).
No broadcast date for Sacred has been set at this time.
Among the new documentary projects currently being produced by WOWOW (with international co-production partners) are Cathedrals of Culture, directed by Wim Wenders and Robert Redford, and Cameron Carpenter: The Rebirth of Majesty, directed by Thomas Grube.
