I really enjoyed teaching Social Justice Filmmaking at Harvard this fall. It’s production course that explores the intersections of aesthetics, ethics, and impact.
I find that some of the strongest work emerges when students focus on a very particular story that opens onto a larger issue. One great example is Zora’s World, by Aurora Sousanis and Kai Wong: a portrait of a family’s continual support and educational advocacy as their 11-year-old daughter discovers who she is.
We’re so excited that several funders have come on board to support our new film UNCONSCIOUS MEDICINE (working title). In the past few months we have received generous support from the LEF Moving Image Fund, The Harvard Initiative on the Study of Psychedelics and Society – following up on earlier grants from the McMillan-Stewart Foundation, Human Family Unity Foundation, and Bob Hong Foundation.
The film is a meditative cinematic journey into the minds of five people harnessing the power of their unconscious to treat their illnesses. Pictured above is Mazateca healer Doña Aurora Catarino Oceguera doing incantations at a sacred mushroom ceremony outside Huautla de Jiménez, Mexico.
Heaven Rain Flows Sweetly, a film I co-produced and story consulted with director Shasha Li and producer Xin Li, premiered last night at DOC NYC.
A love letter to home and an offering to nature, this meditative personal documentary traces the filmmaker’s native roots in Himalayan China as she evacuates from historic wildfires that threaten her home in Cascadian Oregon.
I really enjoyed providing feedback on cuts and proposals and supporting these two young filmmakers over the course of two years.
The film can be viewed online through November 26 here.
