Sundance Film Festival’s When Two Worlds Collide won the World Cinema documentary special jury award for best debut feature. Conflicts over natural resources in the Amazon region have intensified in the past few decades, with indigenous peoples often facing encroachment of their ancestral lands from logging, mining, oil production and hydro dam construction. Sundance documentary [...]
The Land of the Enlightened won a World Cinema special jury award for best cinematography at the Sundance Film Festival. The history of Afghanistan has been punctuated by a succession of invasions from the era of Genghis Khan right up until the present day. The occupation by American and coalition forces beginning in 2001 has [...]
Embrace of the Serpent was the recipient of the 2016 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize at the recent Sundance Film Festival. As Colombia’s submission for the Best Foreign Language film Oscar, The Embrace of the Serpent surprised awards-watchers when it secured one of only five nominations for the award in January. Ciro Guerra’s third [...]
Adam Skolnick explores the depths of the freediving community in his latest book, One Breath. The quest to stretch our limits can have miraculous or tragic results. In 2013, Adam Skolnick covered the freediving competition Vertical Blue in the Bahamas for the New York Times. American Nicholas Mevoli was a rapidly rising (or more appropriately—rapidly [...]
EarthRise SoundSystem latest album features musical guests Vishal Vaid and MaxZT. (Black Swan Records) The acclaimed production duo, Derek Beres and Duke “Mushroom” Schommer, aka EarthRise SoundSystem (ERSS), have combined their musical expertise to mix dozens of international and electronic artists. Additionally, they’ve released three acclaimed albums—two of their own music, and one featuring their remixes [...]
The debut from ex-punk-rocker-turned-yogi Raghunath served as my traveling companion on a drive along the rocky coast of Maine. The album’s broad strokes, energized layers, and variety of beats proved to be a fine sonic complement to the rush and fade of Atlantic waters. The artist/yogi (never without his harmonium) is beloved worldwide for his [...]
One meaning of the word kirtan (phonetically keer-ton) is 'praise'. A variety of kirtan chants, often as call-and-response were traditionally utilized as a method to pay respect to the Divine. In his fifth release, Safe Harbor: Healing Kirtan – Mahaprasad, master musician, poet, peace activist, award-winner, and healer Sudama Mark Kennedy delves soulfully into this [...]
Focus on Film: Trends in conscious filmmaking with Danette Wolpert, Executive Director of ILLUMINATE Film Festival What trends do you see in film today? Aside from lots of superheroes, Alicia Vikander being Hollywood’s new “It” girl (seven films in one year, including Ex Machina and The Danish Girl), and the abundance of dinosaurs (Jurassic World, The [...]
Author Ora Nadrich offers more than a focus on positive psychology in her latest book Says Who? At first glance, Ora Nadrich's book Says Who? How One Simple Question Can Change the Way You Think Forever is a self-help title focused on positive psychology. While she definitely encourages remaining on a "positive track" with our thinking, and rerouting [...]
Let Go and let God. Ishvara Pranidhana. Kneel before the Lord. Surrender to Source. Different forms of spirituality or religion emphasize the importance of surrendering to something greater than yourself with the promise that when we choose to follow the lead of a Higher Power, our lives will open in ways we never could [...]