German-language version
About the Film
Hildegard Spricht is the German-language version of the documentary film by Michael M. Conti and theologian-author Dr. Annette Esser, produced in collaboration with the Scivias Institute for Art and Spirituality. The film brings to life nine meditative texts written by Esser in the voice of Saint Hildegard of Bingen — each one composed for a specific stage of the Hildegard Way pilgrimage route in the Nahe Valley of Germany, where Hildegard lived, worked, and founded her monasteries in the 12th century.
In each text, Hildegard speaks in the first person — about her childhood, her visions, her art of healing, her entrance into monastic life, her teacher Jutta of Sponheim, her preaching tours, and the founding of her Rupertsberg women’s monastery. Filmed on location along the Hildegard Way with international pilgrims, period costumes, and live musical performances, Hildegard Spricht is both a pilgrimage companion and a portrait of one of history’s most enduring spiritual voices.
The Origin of the Film
The project began in 2017 when the Naheland tourist organization asked Dr. Annette Esser — a theologian who had devoted more than 25 years to studying Hildegard of Bingen — to write short audio texts for the ten stages of the newly opened Hildegard Way pilgrimage route. Rather than describing the landscape, Esser wrote from within it: nine texts in which Hildegard herself speaks, in the first person, about the places and experiences that shaped her extraordinary life.
When Esser read the texts aloud to pilgrimage groups along the Hildegard Way, the response was immediate. The intimacy of the first-person voice reached people in a way that longer academic writing could not. The idea grew: these texts should not only be heard as a podcast — they should be filmed. Searching for a filmmaker through the Facebook page of the International Society of Hildegard von Bingen Studies, Esser found Michael M. Conti, whose earlier film The Unruly Mystic: Saint Hildegard (2014) had already established him as a dedicated voice in Hildegard documentary filmmaking.
Filming on the Hildegard Way
In the summer of 2019, Conti and his wife and co-producer Heather Boyle joined Esser and the International Hildegard Pilgrimage of the Scivias Institute in Germany. What began as a documentary shoot became a community event, drawing in pilgrims from the United States, South Africa, Ireland, and Germany, alongside local performers and scholars.
Among those filmed: singer Susanne Förster from Aachen performing Hildegard songs with her harp; Nico Gäns from Sponheim dressed in a medieval monk’s robe in the Minster Church; musical actress Susanne Prass traveling from Salzburg to portray the young Hildegard pilgrim; and Cologne historians who crafted 12th-century monk and nun costumes specifically for the production. Harvard scholar Dr. Beverly Mayne Kienzle later contributed educational notes to help viewers engage more deeply with the material.
The ten resulting videos — produced transcontinentally between Boulder, Colorado and Bad Kreuznach, Germany — extend beyond the original nine audio texts to include Esser’s meditation on Viriditas (Hildegard’s concept of the greening power of life), a poem by Australian author Colleen Keating, a speech by Sr. Hiltrud Gutjahr OSB at Hildegard’s shrine in Eibingen, and an interview with Esser at the ruins of Dalburg Castle.
Hildegard Spricht in Neun Kapiteln
Jedes Kapitel des Films entspricht einer Etappe des Hildegardweges. Hildegard — in Essers Worten — spricht über:
- Edle Steine und das Himmlische Jerusalem
- Ihre Herkunft und Kindheit
- Ihre Visionen
- Ihre Heilkunde
- Ihren Eintritt in das Kloster des Heiligen Disibod
- Ihre Lehrerin Jutta von Sponheim
- Das Pilgern und ihre Predigtreisen
- Wie sie als Seherin zu Ruhm gelangte
- Die Gründung ihres Frauenklosters auf dem Rupertsberg
Premiere and Screenings
The English version of the film, Hildegard Speaks, premiered virtually in September 2020 as part of a twelve-day Virtual Pilgrimage with Saint Hildegard, attended by more than 100 participants from around the world.
Hildegard Spricht — the German-language version — had its theatrical premiere at the Hildegard Week in Bad Kreuznach, Germany, August 12–21, 2022, a week-long festival dedicated to Hildegard’s healing arts, music, and spiritual legacy. The film has since screened at venues across Germany and Austria, including St. Josefshaus in Engelberg.
The Companion Book
Alongside the film, Annette Esser published Saint Hildegard Speaks — Hildegard spricht, a multilingual companion book containing the nine audio texts in their original German with Esser’s English translation, plus translations into French, Italian, Spanish, and Dutch. The book is intended as a working pilgrimage guide — designed for leaders to read aloud at each stage of the Hildegard Way in any language their group requires. Available through the Saint Hildegard Way and Crazy Wisdom Publishing.
So also sprich auch du, o Mensch, über das, was du siehst und hörst.
— Hildegard von Bingen, Liber Scivias
About Annette Esser
Dr. Annette Esser is a German theologian, artist, and founder of the Scivias Institute for Art and Spirituality in Cologne. She has devoted more than 25 years to studying the life and work of Hildegard of Bingen — translating Barbara Newman’s landmark monograph Sister of Wisdom into German in 1992, completing her Master’s thesis on Hildegard at Union Theological Seminary in New York in 1995, organizing international Hildegard conferences and pilgrimages since 2009, and creating the clay sculpture of Hildegard that serves as the emblem of the Hildegard Way pilgrimage publications. She is the author of the Hildegard of Bingen Pilgrimage Book (Liturgical Press, Minnesota, 2022) and the principal writer of the nine meditation texts that form the heart of Hildegard Spricht.
The films, books, and tours are Crazy Wisdom Films’ gifts to remind us of the unruly mystics who stood strong and were brave, open, and eternally wide awake — their messages continue to inspire and challenge today’s status quo. Learn more about the mission behind Crazy Wisdom Films.
♥