DoubleBand Films’ third installment of their William Crawley trilogy for BBC NI, ‘Losing our Religion’, sees the presenter asking if religion has a future in Northern Ireland.
Crawley will travel Northern Ireland to explore the relevance of religious ideas and practices in the lives of both believers and non-believers and look at what role religion has to play in the lives of people in Northern Ireland nowadays, he will also reveal the changing role of religion in his own life.
’Losing Our Religion’ is the third in a trilogy of documentaries made for BBC Northern Ireland by DoubleBand Films in which Crawley makes a personal journey into aspects of life. The first of these, ‘Sorry for Your Trouble’, examined our attitudes to death and dying. The second, ‘Dying for A Drink’, looked at society’s relationship with alcohol. In both documentaries, William also made a personal exploration into his own and his family’s story.
‘Losing our Religion’ is produced by Leo na Coulter and directed by Brian Henry Martin. David Baker and Michael Quinn were the cinematographers of the project which was edited by Nick Emerson. The executive producers involved were Michael Hewitt and Dermot Lavery.
‘Losing Our Religion’ seeks to make a similar investigation into our society’s relationship with religion, and, on the way, William reveals part of his own experience of faith and the church in his former role as teenage preacher. William Crawley says: “In some ways, my story is a very typical one. More and more people in Northern Ireland are rethinking re-imagining their understanding of faith and the traditional, organised houses of faith. That’s not always a journey away from God; it is often an expedition into new ways of speaking about God and new ways of following the religious path.“
Director Brian Henry Martin from DoubleBand Films says: “We wanted to explore the future of religion in Northern Ireland, the role that churches play in a modern society and the role of faith in all our lives. William Crawley is our perfect guide on this journey, having been a non-believer, a convert, a preacher and now a questioner. It was very exciting to make the fi lm with him because as well as exploring religious life in Northern Ireland; we were following William refl ecting on his own spiritual journey. In making Losing Our Religion, we wanted the programme to appeal to everyone – believers and non-believers – and we hope it will be a real conversation-starter.”
‘Losing Our Religion’ will broadcast on BBC One Northern Ireland on Monday, October 12, at 9.00pm.
