Abbaye

Contemplative audio documentary, 2019

Independent production, with the support of RTBF

On the banks of Lake Memphremagog, in Quebec, stands the Abbey of St-Benoît-du-Lac. Twenty-six monks live there, according to the precepts of the Rule of St. Benedict. Abbaye is a proposal to meet them, through sound. A contrasting universe where sonic and poetic encounters are staged between the microscopic and the immense, the prosaic and the spiritual, the anecdotal and the imaginary, the ancient world and the modern world.

Prix Découvertes Pierre Schaeffer, Winner, Phonurgia Nova Awards 2017, Paris

Le Réel à l'écoute, 3d Price Winner, RIDM 2017, Montréal

Prix documentaire, Finalist, Festival Longueur d'ondes 2019, Brest

Supported by Bourse Gulliver (SACD France & Belgium), 2017

Diffusions

Radio Télévision Belge Francophone (RTBF), Les Yeux Ouverts (Paris), Tënk.ca (Canada), Magnéto (Canada)

Louis-Olivier Desmarais : Original idea, production, artistic direction, recording, composition and post-production.

« An exceptional piece by Louis-Olivier Desmarais. Abbaye, a visit that makes a place ring. A piece that is both contemplative and concrete in reality, both musical and sound. »

-Pascale Tison, Par ouï-dire, RTBF (Brussels)