This is the provocative invitation that led a group of pilgrims from Arizona to walk the Camino de Santiago and at the same time appear in the documentary 'Footprints: el camino de tu vida.'
'We are looking for people who are willing to walk 550 miles throughout the course of 40 days. No guarantees are offered to get to this destination, but days of intense suffering are promised, cold and heat in equal proportions. Muscle strains and blisters are more than likely as well as discouragement invited to abort the plan. There will be little sleep, some nights will be spent on the hard ground or inside a sack under the rain.'
Eleven brave people with different backgrounds and personal stories agreed to the project without hesitation. Like all roads, eventually this one also came to an end, as they traveled from Santiago to Rome and discussed their journey while in the Eternal City.
'It was a great experience, there is so much that you get out of a pilgrimage and I'm just blessed to have the opportunity'.
The route is not easy and it was something that they already knew. There were times when both physical and spiritual exhaustion had the best of them. This Spanish priest, who now works in Arizona, accompanied them as a means to ease their situation.
FR. SERGIO MUÑOZ FITA
'We have the psychological age of the pain we have been able to overcome and I think also the pilgrimage can teach us in the future too. To not be defeated by hard times but to overcome them. How do we overcome things? With hope, with hope...'
'Footprints' is the latest project of Juan Manuel Cotelo, director of 'La última cima' and 'Mary's Land.' With this new film, he wants to show how the Camino de Santiago transforms the lives of the pilgrims who dare to undertake it.
JUAN MANUEL COTELO
Director, Footprints
'People get the opportunity to walk the Camino de Santiago in order to learn how to walk in life. It's like a study on life. When walking through different villages to get to Santiago, you will not just remember the photos or postcards or things you've eaten. But you'll gain some very strong lessons for your everyday life and that's mysterious, but it happens.'
This documentary will soon be streaming on Netflix. From start to finish, the film immerses the viewer with an action-adventure. The whole movie was shoot without a script and left everything to improvisation. Anything could go right or wrong, however the director was confident that the pilgrims journey would provide a plenitude of stories to tell at the end of their experience.
The protagonists traveled over 500 miles in 40 days, in one of the most popular pilgrimages traveled by more than 200,000 visitors a year.
