Event: Pre-Screening: “Sand and Soul”
Date: Friday, October 2, 2026
Time: Doors open at 7:00 PM; Film presentation begins at 7:30 PM (Run time: 1 hr 15 mins)
Location: Parish Hall
Admission: No entrance fee. However, donations will be gratefully received to support the production and promotion of the video.
Sand and Soul is an hour long immersive experience into the solitude of the Sinai wilderness. Travelling by jeep with local Bedouin and legendary Sinai Guide Dr. Rabia, Richard LeSueur, and two companions journey into the desert on an ancient pilgrim route that leads to the heights of Mount Sinai. Along the way aspects of the desert become poetic metaphors for reflection on the wilderness times of life – those times when a person can find themselves in an uncertain and lonely ‘landscape’ and have to find their way again. The video toggles between stunning visual experiences and reflective meditations, between landscape and inscape, between sand and soul.
Sand and Soul is a non-commercial, self-promoted video being made available widely at no cost. Production was self-funded, with some generous donations from a wide community of friends in Canmore, Calgary, Vancouver and Victoria.
In the 1990s, Richard served as the Director of the Desert program with St. George’s College in Jerusalem.
While this films is not an explicitly Anglican film, nor a production of the General Synod, Richard thanks Dr. Andrea Mann and the Department of Global Relations and Ian Alexander for their help through this four-and-a-half-year project.
The pre-screening is open to any and all. Richard will also send invitations to a number of people in Vancouver who have been kind supporters of the project since 2022.
The video is to be released in October following pre-screenings in Vancouver, Victoria and Calgary.
One reviewer has written:“Sand and Soul is a gentle tribute to the power of how a wilderness landscape can awaken an inner journey of reflection, soulfulness and even personal change.”