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Private Notes
Alicja meets with Sir Roger Vernon Scruton at his magnificent estate which he has named “Scrutopia,” the perfect place for her to try to loosen the strong views of this green conservative thinker. Scruton is an English philosopher who specialises in aesthetics and has written more than forty books on philosophy, art, and politics. He rides horses, plays the piano and organ at the Anglican Church and plunges Alicja into rural life.
In a house full of monumental sculptures and delicate busts Alicja meets sculptor Alexander Stoddart. In 2008 the artist from Glasgow Scotland became court sculptor of the British royal family. He has since become one of the most renowned classical sculptors from Britain. Alicja becomes fascinated by his talent, glib tongue and his passion for the Baptist Church.
Alicja meets Connie Palmen, the leading lady of Dutch literature and a true Catholic. They meet in the heart of Amsterdam and talk about faith, love and death.
Alicja meets Raymond Tallis, a neuroscientist and philosopher who doesn't believe in God and calls himself an optimistic humanist. After his retirement he became a full-time writer and poet, and he writes about art, culture, spirit and nature. Alicja is a guest in his home in Manchester and accompanies him in The Athenaeum Club, a gentleman's club in Pall Mall in London, where Darwin and Dickens were members.
The Benedictine monk Laurence Freeman (65) is a world authority in the field of meditation. He lives in a monastery without walls, travels the whole world, and has a permanent place in the center of London. The author of dozens of books and friend of the Dalai Lama is a staunch advocate of interfaith dialogue. On the feast day of St. Benedict he takes Alicja to the convent in Turvey and teaches her to meditate.
As a child, Anisa Mehdi (60) celebrated Christmas, Easter, bar mitzvahs and Ramadan - and she assumed that everyone did. This mixed religious upbringing has had a strong influence on her work as a journalist and documentary filmmaker. She was the first woman to report on the Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. The winner of two Emmy Awards and flutist, Alicja meets with her at home in Maplewood, New Jersey.
Krzysztof Zanussi is one of the most renowned movie directors in Europe. Alicja visits him at his home just outside Warsaw.
Alicja travels to Amsterdam to meet with Lieve Joris (63), a Belgian non-fiction writer. Lieve has traveled the world, often in very difficult conditions, writing about the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa. She often works as an au pair in her host countries, afterwards always returning to her nest in Amsterdam which she shares with her Polish husband Marek. Alicja visits them together in Neerpelt, where Lieve grew up in a family of nine children.
In the last episode Alicja visits Lydia Chagoll (85), choreographer, filmmaker and writer. Chagoll calls herself 100% humanist and rebel. Her social commitment is reflected in word and deed: she worked as a lay counselor in prisons and writes and films about prisoners, child abuse and euthanasia.
Alicja is a guest of Senegalese star Youssou N'Dour, perhaps the most famous African musician, but also a man who takes inspiration and commitment from his faith. Alicja is given the exceptional opportunity to meet him in his personal environment. During Ramadan, they share the iftar (the meal after sunset) and she visits him during rehearsals in his music studio.
Marcel Möring is one of the most important writers in the Netherlands and is known as a powerful storyteller that works uncompromisingly. He has been living in Rotterdam for 25 years but grew up in Drenthe, a region that has become part of him and where he regularly returns. He calls himself a walking Jew who is uprooted and doesn't feel at home. Alicja returns with him to his native area where he talks about his search for his origin, destination and identity.
Theodore Dalrymple is the pseudonym of Anthony Daniels, a psychiatrist who has worked in state hospitals and prisons in England. The prisoners and abused women he treated there provided material for his books and articles. Because of the critical views of the wealth state, critics accuse him of being a pessimist, yet for some politicians such as Bart de Wever, he is another source of inspiration. Alicja wants to know who the person is behind the pseudonym.
Nelofer Pazira is an Afghan journalist and filmmaker who as a sixteen-year-old fled with her family from Pakistan to find a new home in Canada. Nelofer found out how, as a refugee, you lose not only your physical place, but also your identity. The refugee problem is a constant theme in her documentaries and books. Alicja visits with her in her home in Beirut and they visit the Palestinian refugee camp Shatila together. A hallucinous place the size of a city.
Lode Van Hecke has been the abbot of Orval's Cistercian Monastery for ten years. He has been living in the 11th century abbey for more than 40 years, a place that, according to him, is still full of beauty. In times when the Catholic Church in Flanders is faltering and churches and monasteries are run down, he sees it as his task to look forward to the future - even if he may be Orval's final abbot. Alicja gets the extraordinary opportunity to live in the community for three days.
Renata Salecl is a Slovenian philosopher and sociologist who now lives with her son in Ljubljana after divorcing the famous philosopher Slavoj Zizek. She wrote several books about making choices, love and fear. With Alicja, she talks about how our consumer society leads to keen stress and how social media stimulates fear and asks questions like “who am I in the eyes of others?”
Raoul Servais is one of the most innovative Belgian filmmakers of the twentieth century. He made twenty animation films and won more than fifty awards, including the Golden Palm at Cannes. Servais has a passion for beauty and is still active at 89 years-old, continuing to inspire young people. Alicja visits with him in his remote house in Leffinge and they talk about his life force, positivism and pursuit of a better world.
British writer Sara Maitland chose a life of silence. In 2010, she converted to Catholicism and swapped life in busy London for the countryside. She feels that silence helps her to see things as they really are. But she also experiences how difficult it is to isolate you from your fellow human beings.
Masaaki Suzuki enjoys worldwide fame as a Bach specialist. He was born in Kobe, the city known as the center of church music in Japan. After his music studies in Tokyo, he went to the Conservatory of Amsterdam. Suzuki belongs to the 1% Christians in Japan. He is part of the Shinko-Kyokai, the Reformed Church, who believes everything is destined. For the protestant Suzuki, conducting Bach's music was not a choice but his fate.
Lesley Hazleton, a British-American author, is an agnostic and very fascinated by historical religious figures. As a 22-year-old girl, she lived in Jerusalem, where she stayed for thirteen years in spite of various wars and reported to various media. Alicja is visits her in Seattle, where she has lived in a floating house for 25 years.
