FIERCE LIGHT acquisition in today’s Variety & ScreenDaily.com
April 30, 2009
‘Alive Mind’ acquires ‘Fierce Light’
Doc features Desmond Tutu, Alice Walker
Richard Lorber’s “Alive Mind” label has acquired spirituality docu “Fierce Light.” Pic is helmed by Velcrow Ripper, who won the Toronto Film Fest’s special jury prize for “Sacred Sacred,” and features interviews with archbishop Desmond Tutu and Pulitzer winner Alice Walker, among others.
Pic, along with fellow Lorber docu “Intangible Asset #82,” will be distribbed via Lorber HT Digital, which will offer the pic via VOD outlets including MyFilmBlog.com starting immediately. Enthusiasts will be able to pick up a hard copy of the film on DVD in late 2009/early 2010. Theatrical release is skedded for Q2 of 2009.
“We wanted to make the VOD available almost as an extension of the movie’s premiere at Hot Docs,” Lorber said. Pic is available online prior to its screening at the fest.
Read the full article at:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118003059.html
and from ScreenDaily.com:
Lorber HT Digital has acquired all US rights to Velcrow Ripper’s spiritual activism documentary Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action ahead of its premiere at Hot Docs in Toronto next week.
Lorber HT Digital will offer both Fierce Light, which features contributions from Daryl Hannah among others, and Intangible Asset #82 to the public via its digital affiliate MyFilmblog.com, where visitors can buy a seven-day VOD ticket and apply that to the cost of the DVD.
Richard Lorber and Elizabeth Sheldon brokered the deal on behalf of Lorber HT Digital with Christina Rogers for the National Film Board Of Canada.
Lorber HT Digital will launch the film theatrically at select venues in the second quarter through its Alive Mind specialty label and offer it with public performance rights to educational and cultural institutions.
Hot Docs will also screen another recent Lorber acquisition, Emma Franz’ debut documentary Intangible Asset #82, which was previously reported on this site.
Review of FIERCE LIGHT in Common Ground (Canada):
April 30, 2009
As the drama unravels, Ripper succeeds in showing the importance of the action in bringing people together and raising consciousness, even if the goals of the action are not fully realized.
Considering the film covers so much pain and violence (I’d forgotten quite how awful that Rodney King beating was), its stories are often quietly inspirational. Ripper melds mythology and spiritual practice with a meditative soundtrack and fluid, metaphorical imagery so that it almost washes over you. The theatrical release is set for May 15.
To read the whole review: http://www.commonground.ca/iss/214/cg214_alstead.shtml
Half Moon Bay Review sidebar on Saltwater Buddha event at Ink Spell Books
April 30, 2009
A nice writeup of Jaimal’s book & his event this weekend at Ink Spell Books:
http://www.hmbreview.com/articles/2009/04/29/community/doc49f7684eb7e81936756176.txt
Saltwater Buddha feature in the Monterey Herald
April 30, 2009
A fantastic profile of Jaimal and the book in the Monterey Herald (4/19/2009):
This breezy, coming-of-age tale is in fact a memoir, a quest for pelagic vitality and terrestrial enlightenment all rolled into the spiritual spindrift of Zen. Much as surfing requires countless days spent flailing at the mercy (and often merciless) power of the ocean, Yogis’ Zen quest is just as hard-earned. But by using Zen to comprehend surfing and surfing to sort out Zen, “Saltwater Buddha” gets about as close as any previous surf narratives to answering the question: What are all those surfers doing out there bobbing in the cold water for hours on end only to catch a few brief moments of a ride?
Read more here: http://www.montereyherald.com/leisure/ci_12177434?nclick_check=1
Saltwater Buddha reviewed in San Francisco Magazine
April 30, 2009
Annie Tucker Morgan gives Saltwater Buddha an A- in San Francisco Magazine. For a larger copy of the article, click here: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_oz2gt81p63s/SejGXdy8bwI/AAAAAAAAARU/FOoyMnIJ4EA/s1600-h/SM0905_A_SnapJ_2.jpg
FIERCE LIGHT in the Times-Picayune
April 30, 2009
FIERCE LIGHT recently screened in New Orleans and was profiled in by Movie Critic Mike Scott in the Times-Picayune on 4/16/09:
Along the way, “Fierce Light” becomes a touching portrait of the power of righteousness and love, a reminder that fighting the fight is every bit as important as winning the fight — because the latter can’t exist without the former.
Read the full text of the story here: http://blog.nola.com/mikescott/2009/04/righteousness_burns_strong_in.html
Jaimal Yogis featured in the San Francisco Chronicle
April 30, 2009
Jaimal and Saltwater Buddha were profiled in this feature story in the April 10th, 2009, San Francisco Chronicle:
With “Saltwater Buddha,” Yogis, now 29, joins an impressive posse of surfer/writer/intellectuals at Ocean Beach who have, over the recent past, given surfing a language and a literature. (Writers Daniel Duane and Thomas Farber are surf pals.) As the sport has grown beyond its stoner past into an industry and lifestyle, there are millions being made in auxiliary surf swag. But this book is not a how-to or where-to-surf travel guide; “Saltwater Buddha” tracks Yogis’ passions for meditation and surfing.
Read the rest of the article here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/09/DDAP16OB1F.DTL
Shambhala SunSpace posts first exclusive excerpt of Saltwater Buddha
April 30, 2009
“Saltwater Buddha: A Surfer’s Quest to Find Zen on the Sea” — An exclusive excerpt
With all that talk about “balance” — not to mention films with titles like Zen and Zero, or a kazillion other occurrences of Zen and surfing colliding (whether for dubious reasons or not) — it’s tempting to make tenuous connections between the practice of Zen and the practice of paddling out, standing up, and riding a wave.
There are real connections between the two — but it helps to be a surfer and a Zen-head if you want to know what you’re talking about. Author Jaimal Yogis is both, as his new book Saltwater Buddha: A Surfer’s Quest to Find Zen on the Sea makes plain. (You’ll find a review of the book in our May 2009 issue, on stands now.)