Watch Whiskey Priest

According to local legend, a defrocked Episcopal priest lives in the mountains of northwestern Skagit County and takes confessions by mail, via a post office box in the sleepy town of Bow, Washington. In WHISKEY PRIEST (a title inspired by Graham Greene's "The Power and the Glory"), Pacific Northwest filmmakers Randy Walker and Jennifer Shainin visit a few of the people who have received replies. Made for Mike Plante's Lunchfilm series for the price of a lunch with the filmmakers, WHISKEY PRIEST becomes a meandering, easy-going portrait of the people who reached out to him and an offbeat sketch of the community in which they live. The confessions become our entry into a group with nothing in common but their efforts to reach out for some kind of comfort or absolution. - Sean Axmaker