Current/Most Recent NDNF ND/NF Archives ND/NF 2006 Program Films Half Nelson The Blossoming of... October 17, 1961 Look Both Ways Iceberg Quinceañera Cavite Sangre Man Push Cart A Soap Eleven Men Out John & Jane Toll-Free Old Joy In Bed Iron Island Pavee Lackeen First On The Moon Texas Into Great Silence Twelve And Holding 13 Tzameti Things That Hang... My Country... Wild Tigers... Toi et moi Shorts Special Events Ticket Info About Past ND/NF Festivals

INTO GREAT SILENCE / Philip Gröning GERMANY, 2005, 162 MIN As a novice filmmaker, Philip Gröning asked the Carthusian monks of the Grand Chartreuse, a monastery in the French Alps, for permission to make a documentary about them. They said they would get back to him. Sixteen years and three dramatic features later, they telephoned Gröning. They were ready, and Gröning was invited, without crew and artificial lighting, to record their daily lives, prayers, rituals and rare outdoor excursions. Into Great Silence is a delicate chronicle, impressionistic, meditative and beautiful, of a year in and around the monastery where gardening, cooking, barbering, tailoring and other monastic activities reveal the monks' silent communion with God. A tranquil contemplation about the possibility of transcendence for all. Philip Gröning was born in Düsseldorf in 1959 and was raised there and in the U.S. He studied medicine and psychology before studying filmmaking at the Munich Film School. He has worked as an actor and screenwriter, and made features and shorts. His documentaries include The Last Picture Taken, Victims. Witnesses and Into Great Silence.

Buy Tickets THURS MARCH 30: 6:00 (MoMA)* SUN APRIL 2: 12:00 noon (FSLC) *Tickets available at MoMA only. FSLC: Walter Reade Theater MoMA: Titus Theater 1