When "The Abbey" series screened to record audiences in 2007 it became clear that many other Australians shared my fascination with the world of faith and the search for God. A year later I heard about an amazing journey about to happen, three young Nigerian Fathers were being sent to Tasmania by their Bishop as missionary priests ... this was a story that needed to be documented.

Initially we had to convince Tasmania's Archbishop Doyle to allow us access to the behind-the-scenes workings of his priests' lives as they embarked on a risky journey with unknown missionaries. With the blessings of Archbishop Doyle and Nigeria's Archbishop Okeke, we were invited to film the first year of The Mission.

We were welcomed into the presbyteries, churches and communities along with the missionary priests. What we found was a generous world rich in characters and drama, a world of established religion struggling in largely secular Australia.

The Mission is filmed throughout Tasmania and in a first for a Western film crew, among the Catholic community of Ontisha in Nigeria ...

and the contrast between Australia and Nigeria's Catholic Church could not be starker.

We filmed churches full of thousands of worshippers, in a place where priests are treated like rock stars and there's fierce competition to enter the priesthood. The Mission is a celebration of the world of faith and community, but a world rarely seen outside the inner sanctum of the Church and the priesthood.

This story of a reverse mission challenges us all to examine our own world view; As Fr Felix succinctly puts it... "Australia is not in Africa and then as the definition goes, it is at the end of the world, that concern that you are going to the end of the world you know, could make one shudder."

Varcha Sidwell, Writer and Director, The Mission.
October 2009