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Progressive politics was dealt a dramatic blow by Karl Marx, who emphasized the importance of the material dimensions politics and argued that religion was the opium of the masses. On the other hand, theologians and believers have long claimed that faith required turning away from the fallen mundane world towards contemplative stillness and hopes for eternal life. As a result, religion and politics have been difficult bedfellows; many insist we don’t politicize religion or bring religion into the political realm. Yet how can meaningful and lasting change transpire?
In Fierce Light: where spirit meets action, Velcrow Ripper aims to reconcile the two so as to renew and reinvigorate progressive political movements across the globe. Drawing from a variety of movements, activists, leaders, and intellectuals, he shifts our ways of thinking about politics towards a more holistic and sustainable view of activism. At times heartbreaking and at times uplifting, the viewer is taken from war zones to urban gardens, from the March on Washington to Vietnam to South Africa in a storyline linked by a clear sense of vision and narrated by the director himself.
Through a combination of powerful footage, dramatic music, and compelling narrative this film brings out themes of community, resilience, and hope in the face of despair, violence and power. Stillness within is required to sustain political engagement so that one’s motives are not simply reactionary but rather motivated by a positive vision of political alternatives. The “Fierce Light” of the title emerges from that stillness, and sustains and inspires those who seek justice in this world and hope to keep alive the bright light of hope. But the Fierce Light is also something larger, not so much nestled within us as hidden in the interconnectedness of seemingly disparate political movements.
Dr. Trevor Norris,
Professor of Philosophy of Education
Ontario Instutute for Studies in Education
Interesting blog piece just came in, tying together Fierce Light, Tehran and Twitter... IT'S CRACKER JACK MATERIAL FILM ON SPIRITUALITY AND ACTION ECHOES TEHRAN -Jessice Sieff It was on a warm spring night and the eve of what would become a history making event resulting in the ultimate reveal of the true beliefs one of the world’s most controversial countries, that I found myself seated in a padded folding chair in the wide open warehouse of a yacht club.
I sat there, awaiting the Waterfront Film Festival’s debut showing of “Fierce Light” a documentary by filmmaker and activist Velcrow Ripper who took a seat one row behind and a few seats down from me with guest Daryl Hannah. As the film began, Ripper introduced audiences to his friend, journalist and activist Bradley Will. Will’s breath can be heard as his hands hold the camera that is displaying the images in the beginning of the film…the volatile streets of Mexico where enraged citizens and police clash with stones, bullet proof shields and gunfire.
And then a moment erupts on screen that rips through any narration or visual imagery. As conditions became increasingly hostile, and Will’s camera became something unwanted - almost before the viewer realizes it – the sound of a bullet cracks in the air with Will’s last breath, a gasp. His camera clattering to the ground, is picked up by unknown hands and left sitting sideways on a bench.
Will’s death resonated with the activists that had gathered on the same street where he moved about with his camera and his mission to record and act on their plight. An uprising occurred in his memory an uprising against what they must have seen as a murderous and unjust society around them.
The narration continuing, Ripper explains how the death of his friend sent him on a journey to discover what happens with spirituality meets action and activism. When we act on what we believe.
My initial reaction to what Ripper is searching for, was a combination of intrigue based on a journalist’s life lost in the attempt to tell a story filled with raw emotion and skepticism for my view of the new age theology of oneness.
But Ripper began his story with the Civil Rights Movement, a movement during which the belief in equality was so fierce so thick and heavy with necessity that many lost their lives, shed their blood and continued to fight against a deep rooted hatred. And then Congressman John Lewis’s face and voice fill the screen.
“I saw hate,” he said. “And hate – was too heavy a burden to bear.”
The film explores many injustices…from the beating of Rodney King, which ignited the Los Angeles riots of the 1990s to the story a plot of desolate space in the center of where such an uprising had taken place. There, members of the community pulled up dead surface and worked in new land, new soil and created a community garden. That garden produced fresh produce, fresh flowers and fed a community with not just its product but its service, as children spent their afternoons working with the soil instead of on dangerous streets.
And then, along came a company – more interested in space that substance and so began a tumultuous fight to save the garden from blank development. A fight that lasted over 30 days and ended in the arrest of two who refused to leave the property – including Hannah and a sea of salty tears as that corporation turned down the $16 million the community was miraculously able to raise to purchase and keep the garden. The question Ripper seemed to ask is at what cost do we abandon all our conscious and all our convictions? When exactly does the soul get sold?
At least…that’s what I took from it.
The film affected me more than I had expected it to. The idea of taking what it is we believe in and combining it with activism planted a seed in my restless little mind. Think…if we love and we act on that love – in every breath and every minute of every day – it would be hard to turn to hate. It would be hard to march into a museum filled reminders of what can come from such hate and take a human life. Environmentalist and activist Van Jones calls it 'soulfulness'. And if you ask me, there's always room for soul.
If we believe in independence – in freedom – if we live and breathe that freedom in every day and wake only to act upon it, it would be hard for us to allow ourselves to become prisoners of others.
Now, I am not what one might consider a pacifist in any such sense of the word. Will was an anarchist. I am not. But I do believe in the necessity of balance. There must be the dark so we know what it means to fight our way through and choose the light. It is that choice that I believe is the divine of life. And this is coming from a girl who enjoys her dark and twisty little places and her overwhelming ponderous thoughts. But without the suffocating and paralyzing reign of a man so filled with madness – we would not be witnessing an uprising by a people who have so eloquently shown the world there is a silent majority in Iran that chooses to be silent no more.
And now – how unbelievably profound. As we question the purpose of social networking such as Twitter – we now see that it is so rapid and so resonate that members of the resistance in Iran are turning to it to keep the world abreast of the violence and the tyranny that abounds on Tehran’s streets. In 140 characters or less.
As we question whether journalism is even relevant anymore – the ban of all foreign reporting reminds us how it so undeniably is. As we lose our eyes the brilliance of the written and spoken word can still spread a message – a message of what happens in the world around us – and how it affects each and every one of us, a half a world away.
And we can remember how purpose needs action. How even in the battles that are lost – there are wars to be won. As Jones says, toward the end of the film, after the garden had been bulldozed and years after Will’s death still leaves a hole in the heart of the filmmaker – “being a rebel is important, because a rebel opposes injustice. But a revolutionary...a revolutionary proposes justice of a new order.”
That revolution is evident today in Tehran. It can be as vast as a country’s uprising against dictatorship – or as intimate as the parenting of our children or the loving of one another. It's all about soul. And you've got to have soul. Learn more about “Fierce Light” at http://www.fiercelight.org.
BLOG LINK: http://crackerjackmaterial.blogspot.com/2009/06/film-about-spirituality-and-action.html
The fifth week of our theatrical run in Canada! Still holding in Vancouver, and opening this Friday, June 12 in Calgary. Tommorrow I'm hopping on a plane to Michigan, where Daryl Hannah will be joining me for the Q and A of the gala screening of Fierce Light at the Waterfront Film festival. The next day I'll be heading to Calgary, to do a Q and A at the Plaza CInema. Sunday I'll be speaking at a United Church in the morning, then teaching a SHINE YOUR FIERCE LIGHT workshop on Sunday afternoon. Busy times!!! And this afternoon, we're having a telephone pow wow with the folks at Alive Mind, to figure out our release plan to help spread Fierce Light far and wide throughout the U.S.
Here's a great review the just came in from FFWD Magazine, Calgary's version of the Village Voice.
A BRIGHT NEW WORLD
-FFWD Magazine, Calgary
It almost never happens. You finish watching a film and as the credits roll and the music plays, you think “Everyone should see this film.” But everyone (and by everyone I mean everyone) should seeFierce Light. B.C.-born filmmaker Velcrow (Steve to his folks) Ripper’s beautiful, poetic, powerful and important film explores the possibility of profound, positive global change that can be realized “when spirit meets action.”
It opens with tragedy: the death of Ripper’s colleague and fellow media activist, Brad Will. Will was shot in 2006, in Oaxaca City, Mexico while filming unarmed civilians fleeing paramilitary forces. When Ripper arrived, Oaxaca was considered the second most dangerous place for journalists in the world, after Iraq. “The whole situation of going down to Oaxaca was like following in Brad’s footsteps and I didn’t want to follow all the way in his footsteps,” Ripper soberly confesses.
In a gorgeous, poetic shot that sets the tone for everything that follows, Ripper, wearing a bright orange shirt, executes a ballet-like tracking shot across a row of black-clad, armed and armoured riot police who are standing only a few feet away. It’s a beautiful image of an extremely tense standoff. Ripper claims that he doesn’t deliberately put himself in harm’s way, but sometimes, following the stories leads him into conflict zones. “I’ve filmed in Afghanistan and I was shot at in Palestine, and I’ve been in those scenarios,” he admits. “I also did a documentary about grizzly bears, and filming riot police is a lot like filming grizzly bears: You never know when they’re going to pounce, but you try to find out when they’re well fed and they’re not about to move. I didn’t think that was the moment, when they were actually going to attack.”
Seeing Brad Will’s final footage affected Ripper on a profound level. “As a cameraman myself, I could very easily imagine that very easily being my last footage,” he says. “It was so close to home.” Will’s death and the acknowledgment of the tremendous uphill struggle facing activists, both spiritual and earthbound, sparked a quest to seek out people living the change, people who possess what Ripper calls, the “fierce light or soul force.”
“People like the Gandhis or the Martin Luther Kings of today, who face innumerable setbacks and yet keep going and have successes,” says Ripper. Beginning in the deep south of the U.S. with John Lewis, a key figure in the civil rights movement and now a congressman in Washington, Fierce Light embarks on a global journey, both physical and metaphysical. Ripper profiles Archbishop Desmond Tutu, punk rock Buddhist Noah Levine, actor and activist Daryl Hannah, and Julia Butterfly Hill, who lived in an ancient, giant Redwood tree for two years to save it from destruction, among others. Along the way, Ripper finds the perceived contradiction between social activism and spiritual awareness to be unnatural and unproductive.
“In activist circles there has been such a rejection of all things spiritual because of religion, particularly fundamentalist religion, and what it has done to human rights and the planet in general,” he explains. “And yet I feel like they’ve thrown out the baby with the bathwater, because there is something to be said for what I call spiritual qualities. They’re important to have an integrated perspective on how we create change, which means coming from the heart, not just from the head. A lot of activism could be called re-activism, and that’s a problem. Activists are often very good at focusing on what they’re against, but they need to also learn to focus on what they’re for.”
Conversely, as spiritual activist Van Jones states, you’ve got to “put some feet under these prayers.” Throughout the film there’s an acknowledgement that the paradigm shift is both possible and absolutely necessary, that there is an almost universal recognition that the present state is unsustainable. Ripper wholeheartedly believes that the means must mirror the ideal, desirable end.
“Ultimately, when it comes to creating change, the more the process in which we create change is consistent with the world we want to see, the closer we are to creating that world,” he says. “Because we’re already living it, on the way to getting there. If our process of creating a better world is violent, then we’re delaying that world from coming into existence. Particularly in activism, I can’t think of an instance where violence is the way to go. That’s called terrorism. Nonviolence may take longer, but again, in what I call spiritual activism, we recognize that the process is as important as the end result.”
The positive potential expressed in Fierce Light seems to be growing exponentially. Four weeks into the film’s release, the response has been overwhelming. “I’ve been doing films for 25 years and this is the film that’s had the greatest impact on people,” Ripper says. “It speaks to something that people are feeling.”
Exciting times! We're going into the fourth week of Fierce Light's Canadian national theatrical release. To have lasted this long is a huge accomplishment for an independent feature documentary with a life affirming message.
Every Monday, the box office is added up, and we find out if the film will get another week in the theatres. Our run has been extraordinary so far. We are still number two in the box office for Canadian films, and have remained in the top ten at Cinema Clock, Canada's national viewers ratings, throughout our run, often beating out Star Trek!
What's particularily exciting to me is that this provides concrete evidence that audiences are hungry for this kind of meaningful cinema, that they are ready for films that offer positive solutions, and a vision of "a world that works for everyone", as Michael Beckwith says in the film.
Fierce Light is about stepping up to the plate, and becoming the change we want to see in the world. Joanna Macy, one of the visionaries in the film, describes this era we're in as being a time of "The Great Turning", a time when we have the opportunity, fueled by necessity, to move from the industrial growth society, to a life sustaining society.
As consciousness evolves, we move through stages not unlike the development of a child, from the egocentric perspective - "me, me, me" - to the ethnocentric - "us", but the us of a specific identity group, be it a tribe, a gang, a nation, a culture - to the worldcentric. This is the "all of us" perspective.
So one of the ways to understand the word spiritual is to look at it as coming from the most expansive, or spacious, perspective possible. Recognizing the truth of interconnectedness, of what Thich Nhat Hahn calls "inter-being" and what Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu refers to as "Ubuntu" - I am because you are. What the science of living systems theory means when it states that everything is part of a system of interconnected systems - there is no seperation. What the religions mean when they use the word "Love". When you go to the heart of all the world's religions, you find this common thread. It is only the people who came after, who take those original teachings and turn them inside out and use them to prop up a false, dualistic, "us vs. them" perspective. This is not meaning of spirituality!
We have all heard these ideas before, and can dismiss them as old news. But a direct, and profound realization of these truths will change your life dramatically. The understanding has to go beyond the intellectual, to a felt, spiritual "aha" - an inner Knowing that becomes rooted in your being, and informs your life, moment to moment, breath by breath. This is where spirit meets action, where another world is born, inside all of us.
For show times and cities, please visit www.fiercelight.org
Congratulations - we did it!!! Fierce Light is held over in Vancouver and Montreal, and expands to two theatres in Toronto Friday! Thanks to all of you who've played a part in Fierce Light having an outstanding first weekend!
Now we need to build momentum, and prove to the cynics out there that a film about hope, compassion, and possibility is needed in this time of crisis. Let's crash the gates of the gatekeepers!
Audience responses have been absolutely tremendous-again and again we are hearing that the film has a transformative effect, that it stays with people for days, that it breaks open the heart and offers a direct experience of soul force, of fierce light.
The Q and As and panel sessions last weekend were so engaged and dynamic that we're doing them again this weekend!
In Toronto - join us for Q&A with director Velcrow Ripper Friday and Saturday 7:30pm screening at Canada Square Cinema.
Also in Toronto, The First Weekend Club is presenting a special talkback session with Fierce Light visionaries Carly Stasko, Judy Rebick, producer Cher Hawrysh and director Velcrow Ripper at the 2pm screening Saturday, May 23, at the Carlton.
Vistit www.cinemaclock.com for further info on Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver screenings. Screening times below.
Please come out, encourage your friends,your relatives, your enemies to see this film on the second weekend. Spread the word on the web via faceboook, myspace, twitter, blogs, comments, and on-line reviews. Send the message out to your mailing lists, let people know wherever you can.
Be an on-line activist, and help Fierce Light stay in the theatres!
Fiercely,
Velcrow Ripper,
Director, Fierce Light
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Tell your friends!
Send the text message at the bottom of this email to your contacts and mailing lists.
Share the link to the website on your facebook page, blog,
myspace, email etc. http://www.fiercelight.org
Follow the link to the trailer on Youtube, and
click "Share":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh5Qvv3UIEg
Twitter about the film
Review the film, and leave positive comments and ratings, wherever you
see Fierce Light mentioned on-line. Key places include:
Cinema Clock:
http://www.cinemaclock.com/aw/crva.aw/ont/Toronto/e/32117/0/Fierce_Light...
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1043845/
CINEPLEX:
http://www.cineplex.com/Movies/MovieDetails/93D6C35C/Fierce_Light.aspx?t...
YOUTUBE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh5Qvv3UIE
Special Shout Out to Montreal!
If you know anyone in Montreal, please tell them about the film! It's been a hard city to spread the word in, and we need an extra push there to get the ball rolling.
Go see the movie and bring your friends!!
COPY AND PASTE BELOW FOR A EMAIL TO FORWARD:
From the director of Scared Sacred
From the Producer of The Corporation
Velcrow Ripper's awarding winning feature documentary,
FIERCE LIGHT: WHEN SPIRIT MEETS ACTION
Now showing in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver
"DRAMATIC, VIVID, STARTLING." ~ The Vancouver Sun
"ACHINGLY BEAUTIFUL." ~ NewCityFilm, Chicago
Fueled by the belief that "another world is possible," Fierce Light
features stories of what Martin Luther King called "Love in Action," and Gandhi called "Soul Force"; what Ripper is calling "Fierce Light." Featuring Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu, Thich Nhat Hahn, Julia Butterfly Hill and Daryl Hannah.
"HUGELY ENGAGING AND VISUALLY DELIGHTFUL, MAGNIFICENT." ~ Toronto Sun"
"COULDN'T HAVE COME AT A BETTER TIME....AN INSPIRATION!" ~ The Montreal
Gazette
"INTENSE AND INSPIRING." ~ Examiner National
Come out to the theatres now, bring your friends, and cast your vote for conscious, independent cinema!
For MORE INFO GO TO http:// www.fiercelight.org
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING...
I entered the theater excited but having absolutely no idea what to expect. I left the theater feeling weightless, uplifted and motivated. - Hannah Elizabeth
Your film shook me to the core. It resonated with something very deep inside me, and the strange thing is, I didn't even know that something was there. Sometimes you hear a song, you read a book or you see a movie, and the impact is so powerful, that your world will never be the same again and you'll see everything in a different light. These magic moments of awakening make life worth living and stay with you forever. ~
Joanna Fekecz
Two days later and still feeling Fierce Light percolating...filled with gratitude, hope, amazement, love. ~ Heather Elson
There are few films that are so complete that the edges disappear; that engage the entire body in viewing, and leave you palpably shifted. Fierce Light is a remarkable combination of all of these things. Art and heart.. - From IMDB
This movie changed me. It speaks to the urgency that spirit meet action NOW. Besides all that it is fine cinema: dramatic, beautiful,
heart-warming, tragic, compelling, inspiring, funny, and entertaining. Go See It. - carla
I can't help but to take delight in seeing such visual and audio poetry showing such a thought-provoking and compelling personal story with global implications as this, made by a sound designer no less! -Leslie Hayman
What a wonderful experience last night at Canada Screens!!! I cried again even though I have seen the film three times but it always is so emotionally riveting and touches me down deep . - Angel Hamilton
Fierce Light is raw, honest and inspiring. I was compelled and felt an inner heat that no other film has made me feel before. While some moments are heartbreaking this film inspires both hope and the course of action to make change. - alisha edgelow
Screening times:
TORONTO
Canada Square (Cineplex)
2190 Yonge St. (at Eglinton Ave. W.), Toronto
*Director Q&A with Velcrow Ripper 7:30pm Show FRI & SAT
Fri: 5:00, 7:30*, 9:55
Sat: 1:55, 5:00, 7:30*, 9:55
Sun: 1:55, 5:00, 7:30, 9:55
Mon, Tue: 5:00, 7:30, 9:55
Carlton (Cineplex)
20 Carlton St. (at Yonge St.), Toronto
Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon, Tue: 2:00, 4:40, 7:20, 10:00
*Special Talkback session 2:00pm Matinee Saturday
With Judy Rebick, Carly Stasko, producer Cher Hawrysh & director Velcrow
Ripper
MONTREAL
AMC Forum 22 (AMC)
2313 Ste-Catherine Ouest, Montréal
Thu: 1:30, 4:05, 6:35, 9:10
Fri, Sat, Sun: 11:30am, 4:45, 9:40
Mon, Tue: 4:45, 9:40
VANCOUVER
Fifth Avenue
2110 Burrard St., Vancouver
Wed, Thu: 2:00, 4:30, 7:10, 9:20
Fri, Sat, Sun: 2:00, 4:30, 7:15, 9:20
Mon: 2:00, 4:30, 9:20
Tue: 2:00, 4:30, 7:15, 9:20
In Spirit & Action
The Fierce Light Grassroots Team
Here's a brief interview with Velcrow Ripper, and clips from Scared Sacred and Fierce light, on The Movie Network (TMN)
SPIRITUALITY, ACTION, MEET WITH GOB SMACKING BEAUTY
Review in the Toronto Sun by Liz Braun, May 15, 2009
Martin Luther King called it "love in action". Ghandi's phrase was "soul force".
Canada's Velcrow Ripper calls it "fierce light" -- a combination of spirituality and activism that he sees gathering strength on a global level. This is what his hopeful new movie, Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action, attempts to illuminate.
The death of a friend during a peaceful protest is the catalyst for investigation at the beginning of Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action. Despite this tragedy, Ripper senses a sea change, a growing general consciousness that, "Another world is possible." So can spirituality coexist with social activism?
His journey of discovery begins in the deep American south, where monuments to the civil rights movement introduce Alice Walker and Congressman John Lewis, among others, in conversations about racism, determination and love in the midst of hate.
(Ripper's film includes conversations with politicians, environmentalists, philosophers and human-rights activists, among them Desmond Tutu, Thich Nhat Hanh, Van Jones, tree-inhabitor Julia Butterfly Hill, Sera Beak of the Harvard School of theology, Judy Rebick, actress Daryl Hannah, and many others.)
Central to the story is a farm in the worst part of Los Angeles, a sudden oasis in the midst of urban blight, where locals work the land and talk about the magical place that keeps their kids off the streets. When the land is sold to a developer, and it looks as if the farm will be destroyed, people from all walks of life turn up to protest. The movie traces the connection between this land and peaceful protests all around the world, and checks in with a variety of experts willing to talk about "the possibility of illumination." Like some kind of modern-day Diogenes -- only with a camera instead of a lantern -- Ripper goes to conflict zones, ceremonies and festivals to discover the growing need for peaceful and productive change.
Fierce Light offers a wide variety of interpretations of spirituality. Connectedness is a common thread, and that connection extends to the planet and every aspect of nature.
Some people march and carry signs and some pray, but almost everyone Ripper interviews is willing to talk about love. Maybe a soft answer really doth turneth away wrath.
Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action, is the second film from Velcrow Ripper that investigates peace, love and understanding. Scared Sacred, his 2005 award-winning documentary, followed his search for hope in the worst 'ground-zero' areas -- from Hiroshima to the toxic dumping ground of Bhopal.
Once again, his ideas are all tied together with magnificent visuals. Some moments, such as a few intense close-ups on human faces, veer a bit too close to the twee; for the most part, however, Ripper celebrates the best of being alive with shots of people and places that are often gobsmacking in their beauty and power.
The film is anti-violence and anti-war; it's about the physical world and how we live in it, and what the future may be because of that. As one subject says, are we going to be locusts or bumble bees?
Fierce Light says we must change to survive as a species.
The place where spirituality and action meet is a spot where you'll want to put down those weapons and be kind to each other and to the planet.
Fierce Light: An Interview with Filmmaker Velcrow Ripper
By Elena Johnson
What do the American civil rights movement, an exiled monk’s return visit to Vietnam, and a community of people trying to save an urban farm in L.A. have in common? According to Canadian documentary film-maker Velcrow Ripper, they are all examples of what he calls spiritual activism, and they are just a few of the inspiring stories featured in his latest film, Fierce Light.
“Spiritual activism,” Ripper explains in a recent phone interview from his Toronto home, “comes from the heart. It’s beyond polarity. It’s coming from a place of compassion, of hope. It’s based on what we are for, rather than what we are against. It’s what Ghandi called soul force, and what Martin Luther King called love in action.
Nice mini-review in the Toronto Sun:
Activist filmmaker Velcrow Ripper asks what's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding. This documentary wants to know what happens when activism and spirituality get together, and the result is hugely engaging and visually delightful. Archival footage brings Martin Luther King into the story; he's in good company with such environmentalists, human rights activists, politicians and philosophers as Desmond Tutu, Alice Walker, John Lewis and Julia Butterfly Hill. The film begins: 'Another world is possible.' Amen, brother.
-- Liz Braun
It's day two of the Hot Docs International Film Festival in Toronto. Last night I attended the opening party at the Royal Ontario Museum of Art. A huge Gala in a beautiful space. Hot Docs is a world class festival, one of the four top docs fests in the world. I'll be gearing up for Fierce Light's Toronto premiere next friday, and Sunday. Both shows already sold out, which is great!
For those that couldn't get in, the following week, starting May 15th Fierce Light begins it's Canadian national theatrical release, playing at the Cumberland in Toronto, and at the Fifth Avenue Cinema in Vancouver.
Tonight I saw the brilliant, idiosyncratic and always gracious John Greyson's new feature poetic operatic documentary, Fig Trees, which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year. A powerful, moving and hilarious film. It featured Zackie Ahmet, the South African Aids Activist. I actually wanted Zackie for Fierce Light, but he was out of South Africa when we were filming there, alas.
During the week I'll be running around like a madman, pitching my next films, Redvolution:Dare to Disturb the Universe (co-directed with Sera Beak), and Evolve Dissolve: Another World is Here, part three of the Fierce Light Trilogy, as well as getting into full steam ahead on Fierce Light's release campaign. Busy days ahead!!!
I'll also be on two panel sessions during the festival, one on the documentary filmmaking and environmentalism, and the other on creative film financing.
We'll be holding a FIerce Light launch party here on Toronto Island Saturday night (May 9), which will be also the 4th annual Hot Docs Unofficial Closing Party. We had it here last year, with DJ Medicine Man, and it was fantastic. A bonfire on the point, and water taxis running back and forth to the city all night. This year we're asking people to wear something red.
We'll be having a special events screening in Toronto and Vancouver sponsored by the Globe and Mail, as well as special Canada Screens event, by the wonderful First Weekend Club, a fantastic organization that helps get audiences out to see Canadian films on that all important, first opening weekend. There'll be a panel session with Carly Stasko, Judy Rebick, Satyhu Satangath and myself, as well as Fierce Light Workshop on the Sunday.