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Series 1 Episode 1 contains a section relating to the First Peoples of Australia
Showing posts with label Documentaries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Documentaries. Show all posts
Sunday, 11 March 2018
Thursday, 13 July 2017
Sacred: agnostic filmmaker's film about religion by Thomas Lennon
An Agnostic Filmmaker’s Film About Religion:
Thomas Lennon (Best Documentary Oscar-winner)
on his new PBS film “Sacred”
Pictured Above: Thomas Lennon in a Beijing Film Studio.
Lennon’s earlier work in China earned him an Oscar and two Academy nominations.
Our Guest:
This time on “Interfaith Matters,” host Maggi Van Dorn talks with Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Thomas Lennon about “Sacred,” his recent million-dollar global documentary for PBS. Two years in the making, and utilizing more than 40 film crews in more than 20 countries, “Sacred” explores ritual practice around the world through stages of life the film terms “Initiation,” “Practice” and “Passage.” As the film journeys through the milestones of private life and the faith practices of individual human beings, a singular story begins to unfold, of universal humanity.
“Sacred” is premiering around the country this year, and, as a WNET-TV production, will be on public TV in 2018. Jump to the link below to watch the trailer. Click here to check for upcoming film screenings in the United States and around the world.
Podcast Highlights:
On what motivated him as an agnostic filmmaker to produce a film about religion: “Jonathan Sacks said, ‘Religion is fire: it can warm, or it can burn.’ The media have done a very good job of looking at the ways in which it can burn. And I thought why don’t I go off by myself and take a few looks at how it can warm.”
On faith as a primary human experience: “The wisdom of [religious rituals], psychologically, does not require you to be a person of faith for you to recognize and be grateful for that transmission of advice from generations before you.”
On his experimental approach to global film-making: “If there is a scene you want covered in Myanmar or in Madagascar… the chances are very good that there’s a filmmaker there who’s going to have an intimacy of relationship with that scene, with that language, with that culture, with that faith, that you do not have – and so it behooves you to invite them into a collaboration.”
On the spiritual creativity of prisoners: “It’s an extraordinary act of existential choice to say, ‘I’m not going to think about the fact that … I’m not going to leave these prison walls except in a body bag…I’m going to think about this other reality that I’m going to insist is the dominant reality.'”
Listen or Download the Podcast:
http://interfaithcenter.org/an-agnostic-filmmakers-film-about-religion-thomas-lennon-best-documentary-oscar-winner-on-his-new-pbs-film-sacred/
Monday, 5 October 2015
The Wheeler Centre, Melbourne : Steve Cannane in conversation with Tony Ortega re Scientology
Scientology: Fair Game?
Scientology’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard, once defined the religion as
being in service of ‘a civilisation without insanity, without criminals and
without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and
where man is free to rise to greater heights’.
Almost 60 years since its foundation, though, Scientology has become a
uniquely contentious phenomenon – with many questioning its status as a
religion, cult or business, and with a reputation for fiercely defensive,
litigious and coercive reactions to criticism. One of the first to feel the
Church’s wrath was Paulette Cooper – whose 1971 book, The Scandal of Scientology, saw her become the target of an
elaborate plot which set out to destroy her credibility, frame her and land her
with a 15 year prison sentence. Codenamed ‘Miss Lovely’ by Church operatives,
Cooper is now the subject of investigative journalist Tony Ortega’s book, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely.
Ortega is a long-time chronicler of Scientology, and one of its leading
scrutineers. Featured in Alex Gibney’s HBO documentary Going Clear, he’s the executive editor of TheLipTV and former
editor-in-chief of The Village Voice. He visits
Melbourne – where the world’s first inquiry into Scientology was held in1963, and Scientology was first banned in 1965 – for a chat with SteveCannane, who’s currently writing a book on Scientology’s history in Australia.
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