03 Sep Death Makes Life Possible Film Update
Our production team is excited to be moving forward on the Death Makes Life Possible film project! In collaboration Deepak Chopra and the Chopra Foundation, Co Director, Mark Krigbaum, I am thrilled by the progress that our team has made. Over the past few months we have received feedback and made many changes to the film. We showed rough cuts to a small group of film makers and producers, such as Steve Michelson, Founder of The Video Project and producer of many films, and Jay Wood, producer and writer of Crude Impact. We also showed it at the IONS Conference in Indian Wells, CA, the Scientific and Medical Network Conference in London, and at the Journey Into Healing Conference at the Chopra Foundation in Carlsbad, CA. At the IONS conference, I hosted two panel discussions on the topic of Death Makes Life Possible, with panel members including Eban Alexander, Edger Mitchell and Jane Gignoux. The feedback we received was encouraging and helped us in the process of completing the final edit. And, we are ecstatic to have Skywalker Sound to help with the sound edit, beginning this week!
In the approximately 70 minute film, we hear from Tony Redhouse, a Navaho hoop dancer about how and why he shares his time and wisdom with hospice patients. We are awed by the heartfulness we experience in meeting Niko, a gregarious Gibbon at the Oakland Zoo, and how he and his keeper are dealing with the loss of his longtime mate. We are inspired by what can we learn about animal consciousness and the cycle of life as we observe how elephants honor their dead. We are touched by the experience of Simon Lewis, a coma patient who was called back to consciousness by his deceased wife, before he knew about her death, and by the brilliance of Lee Lipsenthal, a physician and author of Enjoy Every Sandwich, who faced his own terminal cancer diagnosis with hope and clarity about his impending death. And we gain deep insight from health care professionals about the healing potentials that come from pondering death and what happens after. We also hear from scientists including Dr. Rudy Tanzy, Harvard Professor, Dr. Peter Fenwick, a London psychiatrist, and Dr. Jim Tucker on the science of reincarnation.
Plans for moving forward include submission to film festivals beginning this month. We will also begin production of educational programs that will allow us to take this work out into the community. There will be a version specifically for health professionals, as well as for general audiences. A book by the same title is also in production, which we hope to have completed by January 2015. Stay tuned for excerpts to be posted here.
We are preparing the way for community viewings as well as internet and television broadcast. Our goal is to participate in an emerging movement that is bringing awareness to death as a vital part of life. We will be seeking collaborations with institutions and programs, including hospice, Death Cafes, the Death Over Dinner program, and others. Please stay tuned and join us as we help transform the fear of death into an inspirational life value.
Watch the Death Makes Life Possible film trailer here.
What are your own experiences related to death and transformation? Please share it with us here.