TRANSFORMING the FEAR of DEATH
into an INSPIRATION for LIVING
into an INSPIRATION for LIVING
The Film
Featuring Deepak Chopra and Marilyn Schlitz, Ph.D.
Death is something that most people fear and don’t want to think about. But is it possible that facing our mortality can inspire us to live our lives more fully?
Death Makes Life Possible follows cultural anthropologist and scientist Marilyn Schlitz, Ph.D., as she explores the mysteries of life and death from a variety of perspectives and world traditions. Sparked by her own near death experience as a teenager, Schlitz has been delving into the nature of consciousness and death for the past three decades.
The film looks at how popular culture deals with the ever-present fear many have about our own mortality. Interviews with mental health experts, cultural leaders, and scientists explore the meaning of death and how we can learn to live without fear. The interviews and evidence presented are interwoven with personal stories of people facing their own death as well as those who report encounters beyond death. The narrative is illustrated with vivid imagery.
Death Makes Life Possible features some of the leading scientists, anthropologists, philosophers, spiritual teachers and thinkers of our time – including Yassir Chadley, Deepak Chopra, Mingtong Gu, Stuart Hameroff, Lauren Artress, Michael Bernard Beckwith, Dean Radin, Rupert Sheldrake, Rudy Tanzi, Luisah Teish, Dr. Jim Tucker and others (see full list below).
Death Makes Life Possible offers a deep and thoughtful exploration into the ultimate question we all face.
GO FURTHER
Want to Deepen Your Relationship with Death?
Get started with a free gift. A journal that contains inspriatonal quotes from both the book and the film.
Death and the Health Professional – A Practical Guide to a Difficult Topic.
Get started with this free eBrochure for healthcare professionals.
Film Screening
Organize a screening of the Film in a community setting, retirement home or other facility. Below are resources to help you facilitate and promote the event as well as past screening locations.
Email us if you are interested in hosting a screening marilyn@marilynschlitz.com
Screening Resources
Death Makes Life Possible Discussion Guide
Intended to help you have a positive and rewarding discussion following screening the film, whether you are facilitating a discussion at a house party, community center, retirement home, place of worship, Death Café, support group, or classroom.
Download the Discussion Guide (PDF)
Death Makes Life Possible Sign-in Sheet
Sign-in sheets can be used to collect contact details from your audience in order to bring together the community. After your screening send the sign-in sheet to us, and we will add them to our email list for future updates and events.
Download the Sign-in Sheet (PDF)
Death Makes Life Possible Postcard
These postcards are an excellent marketing tool to draw people to your screening. They can be easily mailed, handed out or displayed on tables.
Download the Postcards (PDF)
Poster
The Poster is an excellent tool to promote your film event. It can be displayed in many different ways and spaces. The blank poster has space where you can add details of your event. To download the image files simply right click on the image when it is opened in a new window and select “Save Image As…”
Download Poster
Download High-res Poster (PDF)
Download Blank Poster
Past Screenings
2014 – 2022
Bay Area Cancer Connections Palo Alto, California
St. Lawrence Arts Center Portland, Maine
The New School at Commonweal Bolinas, California
Cinemapolis Ithaca, New York
First Presbyterian Church San Anselmo, California
The Screening Room Amherst, New York
California College of the Arts (CCA) San Francisco, California
Unitarian Chapel in the Garden Bridport, Dorset, United Kingdom
Union Station Kansas City, Missouri
Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder Boulder, Colorado
First Congregational Church of Falmouth Falmouth, Massachusetts
Warkworth Town Hall of the Arts Trent Hills, Ontario, Canada
PDX Death Cafe Portland, Oregon
Sisson Museum Mt. Shasta, California
University of Maine at Augusta Augusta, Maine
Center for Spiritual Living Redding, California
Havurah Synagogue Ashland, Oregon
CARE Conference Virginia Beach, Virginia
Unitarian Universalist Metro Atlanta North Roswell, Georgia
Chapel of the Angels Mortuary Grass Valley, California
Last Breath Trent Hills, Canada
Duke Center for Living Durham, North Carolina
UCR Palm Desert Center Palm Desert, California
Coast-to-Coast AM Radio Show with George Noory
John F. Kennedy University Pleasant Hill, California
Charter for Compassion Online Public Conference Call
Main Street Landing Film House Burlington, Vermont
Center for Spiritual Living Santa Rosa, California
POSSIBL Festival San Francisco, California
Calgary IONS Community Group Calgary, Canada
Sages & Scientists Symposium Carlsbad, California
Santa Rosa IONS Community Group Santa Rosa, California
Synchronicity: Matter & Psyche Symposium Joshua Tree, California
California Lutheran University Thousand Oaks, California
Chicago IONS Community Group Chicago, Illinois
Featured in the Film
- Lauren Artress, DMin, Episcopal minister
- Ed Bastian, PhD, Religious scholar
- Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith, New Thought minister, Agape Founder and Spiritual Director
- Julie Beischel, PhD, Parapsychogist
- Daryl Bem, PhD, Social psychologist, Cornell
- Yassir Chadly, Sufi Imam and musician
- Deepak Chopra, MD, Physican, writer, and spiritual teacher
- Mingtong Gu, Qi Gong Master
- Bruce Greyson, MD, Physican and expert on near death experiences
- Stuart Hameroff, MD, Physician and quantum physicist
- Rick Hanson, PhD, Clinical psychologist and author of Buddha’s Brain
- Gary Malkin, Composer, speaker, performer, consultant and event arts curator
- Edgar Mitchell, PhD, Apollo 14 Astronaut and founder, Institute of Noetic Sciences
- Dean Ornish, MD, Physician, author and head of Preventive Medicine Research Institute
- Dean Radin, PhD, Psychologist and parapsychologist
- Tony Redhouse, Navajo Hoop Dancer and hospice healer
- Brenda Saunders, PhD, Molecular Biologist
- Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, Biologist
- Rudolph Tanzi, PhD, Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School
- Luisah Teish, storyteller and initiated elder (Iyanifa), Nigeria
- Jim Tucker, MD, Child Psychiatrist
- Jean Watson, PhD, RN, Nurse Educator
Film Reviews
Highly recommended. Deeply personal, yet universal in scope, Death Makes Life Possible is not just about how to die peacefully and gracefully; more importantly, it describes how to fully live.
Skillfully and gently raises the curtain on what we think of as the last act in the our play of life. A landmark production, not to be missed.
Stunning in terms of beauty, richness of detail, heart and wisdom. Brings tears and inspiration.
At Hospice Maui, our Spiritual Care Counselors are particularly attuned to the existential suffering that is often present as someone faces their last days in this world. The film ‘Death Makes Life Possible’ is a very welcome and very powerful new tool. We will be using it for years to come, not only to help relieve the suffering in some of our patients, but also, and sometimes much more importantly, with their families to ease their grief and distress before and after the death.
A superb training opportunity for professionals who work with families facing death. Told through riveting personal narrative and scientific evidence, the film deepens our awareness of continuity of consciousness to reframe the entire journey.
Recommended. Death Makes Life Possible approaches the millennia-old question, ‘what happens after death?’ from a variety of perspectives. Each cultural, religious, and scientific perspective of death is given space to provide explanation for its description of what happens after death. This film is noteworthy in a time when most Americans try to pretend that death does not exist, yet it is an experience shared by all forms of life. This film is suggested for sociology, counseling, neuroscience, religion, and health care – the facets of all these subjects that deal with the study and understanding of death.
The overall impact of this informative and wise book is to deepen the reader’s engagement not only with death but also with life as it is lived in the present from moment to moment. Too many of us postpone or avoid facing death until the last moment and try to shelter our families from it. Then we can take life for granted, busying ourselves with immediate concerns with no consideration of the deeper picture as revealed not only by cutting-edge science but with our unprecedented access to the world’s spiritual traditions. As Marilyn puts it, we can all become more awake, willing and engaged (AWE) and help form a new model for living and dying as part of our collective metamorphosis.
Filmmakers
Deepak Chopra, M.D.
Executive Producer
Deepak Chopra, M.D., is the author of more than 65 books, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His medical training is in internal medicine and endocrinology, and he is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, a member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, and an adjunct professor of Executive Programs at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He is also a Distinguished Executive Scholar at Columbia Business School, Columbia University, and a Senior Scientist at the Gallup organization. For more than a decade, he has participated as a lecturer at the Update in Internal Medicine, an annual event sponsored by Harvard Medical School’s Department of Continuing Education and the Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Marilyn Schlitz, PhD
Executive Producer, Writer
Marilyn Schlitz, Ph.D. is a social anthropologist, researcher, writer, and charismatic public speaker. She is the Dean of the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology at Sofia University and serves as President Emeritus and Senior Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. For more than three decades, Marilyn has been a leader in the field of consciousness studies. Her research and extensive publications focus on personal and social transformation, cultural pluralism, extended human capacities, and mind body medicine. She has a depth of leadership experience in government, business, and the not-for-profit sectors. Her broad and varied work has given her a unique ability to help individuals and organizations identify and develop personal and interpersonal skills and capacities needed by 21st century leaders. Her books include: Consciousness and Healing: Integral Approaches to Mind Body Medicine; Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life; and Death Makes Life Possible.
Mark Krigbaum
Director, Senior Editor
Mark Krigbaum is an award-winning filmmaker with over 35 years of experience as a writer, producer, director and editor on a wide variety of projects including PBS Television, Theatrical Feature Films, Corporate Media and Educational programs. Mark has a degree in Motion Picture Production & Theory from San Francisco State University. He is the co-founder of Petaluma Pictures and his career highlights include: “Transformation of Myth Through Time” (PBS) with Joseph Campbell, Editor for “Mythos” and Director of “Forest of Bliss” a documentary about an ecological education project in India . Awards include Gold and Silver Medals New York International Film Festival, Cindy awards, Gold Eagles, Telly Awards and an Emmy Nomination.
Angela Murphy
Producer
Angela Murphy is the co-founder of Petaluma Pictures and an award winning filmmaker with over twenty-five years experience in the film, video, theater and television industries after earning a degree in Communication from Northwestern University. Highlights of her career include President of Women in Film – Chicago, Producer for documentary television programs for A&E, Discovery and Spelling Entertainment. Since moving to the Bay Area she has created and produced extensive online media, promotional and live streaming video for a variety of clients. She was the Media Director at the Agape International Spiritual Center and at the Institute of Noetic Sciences.
Linda Mendoza
Senior Advisor
Linda Mendoza began her directorial career in 1992, directing promotional segments for Fox and MTV. She then went on to direct sketches for the Nickelodeon sketch comedy series’ Roundhouse and All That. Her other television series credits include, The Chris Rock Show, The Brothers García, Unfabulous, Girlfriends, The Bernie Mac Show, MADtv, Scrubs, Gilmore Girls, among other series. She made her feature film directorial debut with the film Chasing Papi in 2003. In 2008, Mendoza won an ALMA Award for her direction of the Ugly Betty episode, “Betty’s Baby Bump”
Tim Kahle
Editor
Tim Kahle was born and raised in San Francisco where he began his career as an actor at age seven. By the time he went to college, California’s Proposition 13 had cut theater funding in many schools. Luckily, he had also discovered the family movie camera at a young age and had made some short films. Changing his major to film, he studied at San Francisco State University and later moved to New York City rediscovering the theater, this time as a director. After relocating once again to Los Angeles, he worked at the Acme Theater in Hollywood writing award winning scripts. Making Los Angeles his home, he continues to act and direct as well as edit short film projects.
Giovanni Mandala
Music Editor, Composer
Giovanni Mandala is an award-winning songwriter, composer, musician, singer, and performer. He has an established recording track record and a reputation for creative synergy and a collaborative spirit. His work has been used for original music for television—in show, theatrical, TV promo, spot, movie- soundtrack, home video TV and radio commercials, background music for DVD and video recordings.
Production Credits
The Chopra Foundation and The Institute of Noetic Sciences present A Worldview Enterprises production of A Petaluma Pictures film
Executive Producers
Deepak Chopra
Marilyn Schlitz
Director
Mark Krigbaum
Producer
Angela Murphy
Writer
Marilyn Schlitz
Senior Advisor
Linda Mendoza
Composer
Giovanni Mandala
Associate Producer
Carolyn Rangel
Segment Producers
Greg Becker
Heidi Fuller
Tim Becker
Alex Beckstead
Camera, Audio
Mario Ayala
Phil Bissada
John Chater
Bill Cote
David Drewry
Michael Heumann
Joelle Jaffe
Brett Junvik
Mark Krigbaum
Angela Murphy
Martin Redfern
Dane Sawyer
Jose Vergelin
4SP Films
Editors
Rod Gross
Tim Kahle
Mark Krigbaum
Angela Murphy
Graphics and Special Effects
Rod Gross
Color Correction
Kent Pritchett
Sound Editor and Re-Recording Mixer
Erik Foreman
Skywalker Sound
Transcription
Felicia Chavez
Alan Pierce
Davina Rubin
Administrative Assistance
Charlene Farrell
Kickstarter Coordinator
Jenny Mathews
Art
Fariba Bogzaran
Gordon Onslow Ford
Yvonne Theresa Sommeling
Song Credits
Original Score
Composed and performed by
Giovanni Mandala
Additional Music
Appreciation Meditation
Composed and performed by
Frank Harris
Do You Remember Who You Are?
Composed and performed by
Gary Malkin
Movement 2 / Gaining Momentum
Composed and performed by
Jason K. Norris
Light in Darkness
Composed and performed by
Tony Redhouse
Green Thought (In Green Shade) Another Fine Day
Composed by
Tom Green
Film Honors
2015
- Wild & Scenic Film Festival (Nevada City) – January 15-18, 2015
http://www.wildandscenicfilmfestival.org/ - Sonoma Film Festival (Sonoma, CA) – March 25-29, 2015
http://www.sonomafilmfest.org/ - Cosmic Cine 2015 Film Festival (Munich & Zurich) – April 9-15, 2015
http://www.cosmic-cine.com/ or click here to view festival promo for the film.
2014
- Temecula Valley International Film and Music Festival – September 17-21, 2014
http://www.tviff.com/ - San Diego Film Festival – September 24-28, 2014
http://www.sdfilmfest.com/ - Petaluma Film Festival – October 17-19, 2014
http://www.petalumafilmfestival.org/ - Spirit Film Festival (Tel Aviv) – October 29-November 1, 2014
http://www.spiritfestival.co.il/english-hp/
We are grateful for the support of the following individuals and foundations whose contributions helped make this film possible.
Sponsors
Mary Bottini
David Boullata
Charles Brush Memorial Fund
Joann Chan
Corfu Foundation
Dharma Endowment Foundation
Rainer Dunkel
Fenwick Foundation
Lorna Kurtz
Tamas Makray
Ron Pilato
Laurie Rahn
Mary E. Singler
Jennifer Collins Taylor
Claudia Welss
Karen Williams
Jennifer Wood
Contributors
Jaki Armstrong
Maureen Ayikoru
Karen Benson
Tahdi Blackstone
Jackie Cannon
Susan Cooper
Joleen D. DuBois
MC Fennessy
Addie Finseth
Maurice Jones
Therese Karlsson
CJ Kenna
Nancy Kingston
Frank McGonagle
Edgar Mitchell
Suzanne Morrison
Mark Oesch
Gary Powell
Craig Pywell
Barbara Schuh
Sally Silvia
Gerrit Wessendorf
Kory Wynegar
Supporters
Stephen Anthony
AZ Holistic Chamber of Commerce
Paul H. Beals
Larry Bruggeman
Mardy Burgess
MaryCatherine Burgess
Thomas Calabris
Penny Carter
Mike Cranmer
Heather D’Amore
Kristen Del Simone
Lisa Demian
Boris Diekmann
Susan Durell
Hermione Elliott
Thomas Ernst
Roxann Filaseta
Walter Fischer
Wendy Fredricks
Terry Gliddon
Laurie Goren
Geoffrey Gowen
Larry Grigely
Ninni Hannevold
Thomas Hartman
Tom Janisse
Sue Kennedy
Mary Elaine Kiener
Robert Kippley
Joan Klagsbrun
Boris Koodrin
Mary Krakowski
Luann Linquist
Judith Lockwood
Jillene MacCreery
Austin Marx
Carol Mersch
Don Mikkelson
Hollie Mooers
Pamela Nichter
Susan Neil
Harry Owens, Jr.
Ronald Pawasarat
Sherri Phillips
Barbara Pieper
Leslie Royce Pochos
Christina Ross
Dee Schweitzer
Sandra Silva
Sylvia Slade
Sandy Smyth
Ashara Stansfield
William E Stoney
Paul Sugar
Elsa M Swyers
Clare N Telford
Noland Thuss
Christine Trayner
Ed Tyrie
Steve Villano
Louretta C Walker
In Loving Memory
With this film, we remember and honor the lives of these individuals.
Bill, Betty and Carolyn Blackstone
James Pierce Macdonald Blair
David Brady
Donald Brady
Graham Chapman
Eleanor Ciarelli
Ardys Collins
Lynn McVey Dean
Erin Christine Driggars
Fr. Andrew Fennessy
Frederick Finseth, MD
Gerald L. Foreman
Janet Marilyn Gilbert
Helen May Lewis Hull
Patricia Schlitz Ilich
Stanley Ilich
Lois Jandak
Robert Kahl
Mikael Karlsson
Gilbert Kenna
Robin Ann Kirkpatrick-Jones
Kermit and Maryetta Krigbaum
Ken Kurtz
Betty Steward LeBlanc
Nola Lewis
Lee Lipsenthal
Lexie Malkin
John Mandala
Adam B. Mitchell
Lottie Moser
Margaret Murphy
Carmela McGettigan Murphy
Pat and Gene Murphy
Rita O’Brien Murphy
Donal O’Brien
Patrick O’Brien
Ms. Ayiru M. Odrajirua
Candace Pert
Anne and Jule Phoenix
Ruth Pilato
Rick Pilato
Alison Pywell
Phillip Matthew Rangel
Alwine Riba
Kathy (Powell) Robinson
Norval Schlitz
Daniel George Silvia
David Simon
Marcie Simon
Ms. Sharalyn Singer, VP White Mt. Education Assoc.
Richard Anthony Walons
I. Anne Welss
Jim Williams