Independent Film Distribution: How to Make a Successful End Run Around the Big Guys, 2nd Edition, by Phil Hall

A Book Review
by Don Schwartz

An Angel at My Table: The Extraordinary Story of Janet Frame
Most of us have a movie in our heart we absolutely loved, a film we saw as an instant classic such as “Casablanca,” “Annie Hall”, or “Chinatown”, but which never received that scope of recognition. “An Angel at My Table” is that movie for me. Although it was very well reviewed and won a cornucopia of awards, the film never became a household title and never left its public birthplace – art house cinema.

"What Is Wrong With Our World, And What Can We Do About 
   It?"
- A film review of "I Am" by Steven Meloan excerpted from his blog article of March 26, 2011

"Hollywood director Tom Shadyac is best known for his blockbuster comedies-"Ace Ventura," "The Nutty Professor," "Bruce Almighty," and "Evan Almighty." But his interest in the "bigger" questions of life has been smoldering beneath the surface for many years-evidenced by his 2002 film "Dragonfly," which explored life-after-death, ESP, and the near-death experience. . . .

(In interviewing) an eclectic assortment of spiritual, political, and social thinkers--author/activist Noam Chomsky, Rumi historian/interpreter Coleman Barks, scientist David Suzuki, author Lynne McTaggart, Bishop Desmond Tutu, historian Howard Zinn, author/radio broadcaster Thom Hartmann, consciousness researcher, Dean Radin, and many more, to each of these interview subjects, he posed the question--"What's wrong with our world, and what can we do about it?"

These questions, and the answers explored in Shadyac's recently released documentary "I AM," particularly resonated, because they intersect with many of the themes and explorations of our recently published science-adventure novel "The Shroud."

A key conclusion drawn by many of Shadyac's interview subjects is that science has become the cultural filter through which many of our societal norms, behaviors, and institutions have developed and evolved. Newtonian physics established a physical reality composed of discrete and separate objects, operating according to predictable laws of time and space-the universe as a giant billiard table....

Robert Kenner's Food, Inc. is a documentary that tells the story about how agribusiness took over production of our country's food supply. This has resulted in our food having very little nutritional value which has led to widespread obesity (no pun intended), a variety of other health problems and putting small farmers out of business.

ELEVATE FILM FESTIVAL INSPIRES THOUSANDS
by Michael Allen Howard

The 2008 Elevate film festival (5th annual) was held on Sunday, October 5th and it was absolutely inspirational from start to finish.  Kicking it off in grand Hollywood style with a green twist, directors, producers and cast members posed for photos and stopped for interviews on the Green Carpet.

 
A new film by  LAURENT LE GALL of Free Run Pictures. Laurent was both Producer and Director. The documentary about the Burning Man event was an official selection of the Santa Cruz International Film Festival, and has screened in Paris and New york as well as locally in Northern California at The Harmony Festival in Santa Rosa, and the Castro Theater in San Francisco.

"Voyage in Utopia is a remarkable piece of story telling. It does
what our event is said to do: it evokes the inexpressible; it
invites imagination to inhabit the unknown."
    - Larry Harvey, founder of Burning Man

A new film that previewed in the in San Francisco Bay Area recently is: COMPASSION RISING, a  Millennia Music film, conceived and produced by Michael D. Fitzpatrick.

It is the story of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, Thomas Merton and the Radical Music Convergence inside the world's largest cave!

The film was 11 years in the making. At this pivotal time in history, music is an important harmonizer."Compassion Rising was created with the intention of bringing forth a new musical voice designed to silence the mind an open the heart and body to the feeling of compassion, peace and love."

BOOK REVIEW: The Way of Story--The Craft & Soul of Writing, by CATHRINE ANN JONES

META member, CATHRINE ANN JONES, a multitalented writer and screenwriter, is also an award winning playwright and screenwriter whose films include "The Christmas Wife" with Jason Robards and Julie Harris, "Unlikely Angel" with Dolly Parton, and the popular television series, "Touched by An Angel."

The Way of Story is a unique, profound inquiry into the nature of our humanity as captured through the stories we tell and have told about ourselves since the beginning of our history on the planet. Cathrine Ann perceives the stories we tell and live by as a mirror of who we are and our beliefs about ourselves and the nature of reality.