Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action

(Canada, 2008, 97 mins)

35mm

World Premiere

Selected Filmography:  

EXEC PRODS: Mark Achbar, Betsy Carson, Silva Basmajian (NFB)
PRODS: Cher Hawrysh, Gerry Flahive (NFB)
SCR/CAM/ED/SOU DES: Velcrow Ripper
Cast: Daryl Hannah, Julia Butterfly Hill, Van Jones, Alice Walker, Thich Nhat Hahn, Archbishop Desmond Tutu

• IMDB Film Info
• www.fiercelight.org

Acclaimed filmmaker Velcrow Ripper (Scared Sacred) takes us on an international and historical journey that explores the reaches of spiritual activism. In Oaxaca, friend and fellow journalist Brad Will is shot by paramilitaries while documenting the 2006 uprising. In Quebec City, people gather to protest the Free Trade Agreement. In South Central L.A., a peaceful occupation takes place to save North America's largest urban garden (where a vacant lot was transformed into a vibrant oasis by 350 low-income Latino families a decade earlier). When developers threaten the garden, the call for help results in support from hundreds of protesters (including Danny Glover, Ralph Nader and Joan Baez). Actress Darryl Hannah plants herself in a tree with Julia Butterfly Hill to protest the eviction.

Ripper takes an insightful and inspirational look at change motivated by love. Called "soul force" by Gandhi and "love in action" by Martin Luther King, spiritual activism's historical roots are examined and illustrated by interviews with spiritual luminaries Thich Nhat Hahn and Desmond Tutu, and with activists including Alice Walker and bell hooks. We join Ripper as he contemplates his place in the universe, his drive to make the world a better place, and the ways in which the two connect. Fierce Light is a visually powerful and incredibly moving documentary, a spiritual experience in itself, about the impact and the necessity of spiritual action in today's world.

Rated: PG; violence

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