Produced by and starring Reese Witherspoon, directed by Jean Marc Vallee Reese Witherspoon certainly went on a wild ride in the just-released film Wild. Unprepared, naïve, yet determined to walk away her personal issues, her character undertakes a 1,100-mile hike up the Pacific Crest Trail. The story is based on the best-selling memoir Wild: From [...]
Through coalition building and filmmaking, Bridges is on a mission to eliminate childhood hunger. We may know Jeff Bridges best for his decades of work in front of the camera, not the least of which is as the Dude in the The Big Lebowski or as a fading star in Crazy Heart. Yet, some of [...]
The mission of the Awakened World International Film Festival Retreat’s is to “express the voice of the spiritually nature movement.” To this end, the 18 inspirational films shown throughout the week include: People vs. the State of Illusion, Dying to Know, and The Power of the Heart from Light to Life. Each film is accompanied [...]
Song of the New Earth Features Sound Healing In this unique and surprisingly cinematic feature-length documentary, sound healer and brain researcher Tom Kenyon tells the story of being asked if he will sing the song of the new earth. Thankfully, for all of us, he ends up saying yes. What does this mean? Well, the [...]
Directed by Joshua Tickell and Rebecca Harrell Tickell Reviewed by Karen Hemry The movie Pump may provide just the motivation for me to convert my car to an electric or Flex Fuel model in the near future. The documentary points out that, with rising demand for cars and gasoline in booming China, it will be imperative for [...]
The 10-day Awareness Film Festival opened not with a bang but with the type of awareness befitting a longtime meditator or Zen master on Thursday, September 11. The two feature films screened that night at the beautiful Bridges Theater on the UCLA campus were David Lynch’s Meditation, Creativity, Peace and Moving From Emptiness: The Life [...]
Counterpoint Films LA Theatrical Release: October 17 Awake: The Life of Yogananda is a feature-length documentary about Swami Paramahansa Yogananda, the iconic Indian saint and teacher known for Autobiography of a Yogi. Through first-person narrative, powerful reenactments, archival footage, colorful cinematographic metaphors, an evocative soundtrack by Michael Mollura and Vivek Maddala, chants sung by Krishna [...]
The new documentary Yoga Maya offers an in-depth exploration into the many facets of yoga. One of the meanings of the word "maya" is delusion. The purpose of this film is to dissolve many of the myths and misunderstandings of what yoga really is. Yoga Maya offers a discussion around how far the West has [...]
Fed Up about Childhood Obesity Katie Couric was impressed enough with her talk show guest Stephanie Soechtig, the director of the documentary Tapped, that she asked Soechtig to direct a passion project for her. The epidemic of childhood obesity was a subject that Couric felt was only being superficially covered by the media. The result of [...]
The annual SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas, represents a microcosm of the contemporary entertainment industry, and 2014 was no exception. Filmmakers, tech startups ("interactive"), musicians, and fans of each, all converged in Austin during the University of Texas’ spring break. The ten-day festival claims that by “fostering creative and professional growth alike, SXSW is the [...]