Pilgrimage

Elinor Amlin’s Pilgrimage concerns a group of four opera lovers from different cities who gather each year to attend a performance of Wagner’s Parsifal and catch up with each other. This year’s reunion is in New York City, where they’re joined by a very special guest: Esmaeel, a charming young Muslim man who has traveled all the way from Iran to experience the opera firsthand. As the four try to explain the religious themes of Parsifal to the inquisitive Esmaeel, they discover how much their individual worldviews and prejudices color their understanding of it. These prejudices are brought into sharper contrast the next day, when the young Muslim abruptly disappears carrying a suspicious suitcase and one of the friends becomes concerned that they’ve been hoodwinked by a terrorist. Deloss Brown directs.