Los Angeles Film Director Khashyar Darvich and his two newest films featuring the Dalai Lama, ‘Dalai Lama Awakening’ (narrated by Harrison Ford) and ‘Compassion in Action,’ will travel across the U.S. and Canada beginning in September for a dozens of screenings and audience Q&A’s
The new ‘Dalai Lama Awakening’ is the Director’s “15 year realization of a cinematic dream” and is receiving enthusiastic praise from critics and audiences around the world.
LOS ANGELES – Can a film inspire an “awakening” within its filmmaker, as well as with audiences around the world?
Dalai Lama Awakening, which features the Dalai Lama and is narrated by actor Harrison Ford, is Director Khashyar Darvich’s newest documentary film, which audiences are already calling “a shift in consciousness,” “transformational” and “preverbal.”
In a “5 Star” Review, Examiner.com calls Dalai Lama Awakening “a beautiful and thought-provoking film… [Director] Darvich’s compassion and humanity is apparent… Note [the premiere] date because you will want to mark it on your calendar.”
“Visually compelling, inspiring and thought-provoking,” writes Tom Richards of ‘Surviving Ireland.’ “Darvich has put together a compelling, slow-burning documentary that… hits you on the way home.”
Also screening during the U.S.-Canada ‘Dalai Lama Double Feature’ Film Tour from award-winning director Khashyar Darvich is his new film Compassion in Action Film. Open your heart, be the change, & change the world. This powerful documentary, featuring the wisdom of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, received a very enthusiastic response during the recent sneak preview screenings.One audience member in London expressed at the Q&A that he was so moved, that he could not speak and needed time to process and assimilate what he saw and experienced.
“The intention of this and all of our documentary films,” says Director Darvich, “is to inspire audiences and serve the Greatest Good in as powerful and meaningful a way as film can.”
The Los Angeles-based Director’s previous 2008-2012 film tour of his award-winning Dalai Lama Renaissance was a huge success, screening over 1,000 times around the world and enthusiastically received by sell-out audiences.
In March and April of this year, Darvich and his two new Dalai Lama Films toured to enthusiastic audiences in 36 cities in the UK and Ireland.
During screenings in England where both ‘Dalai Lama Awakening’ and ‘Compassion in Action’ screened for audiences, audience members commented that watching the two films provided a complete illuminating experience that lasted well after the films finished.
Melanie from Findhorn, Scotland wrote: “Tonight I went & saw Dalai Lama Awakening… I was blown away… The only way to change the world, is to change yourself. Go and see it for yourselves, & form your own opinions… But if you see just one film this year, make it this one. It was brilliant… Much love to you Khashyar & thank you for everything. You are a very unique man, who is inspiring. It was an experience that I will never forget.”
“Humbling, Motivating and Passionate,” says Jason S. of Aberdeen, Scotland. “Thank you for bringing this to us so far North in Scotland for just one night. I leave with a full heart knowing what I am to do on my next step in my ‘long term plan’. Truly a transformational personal journey for me by watching this film. Thank you for making it and personally showing it around the world. Making a difference – peace and action in motion”
“I was so moved by this film,” writes Margaret-Jane H. from Cambridge, England. “Now I know what my TED Talk is. This experience opened up possibilities for myself and others.”
You may view the trailers for the films, here:
Dalai Lama Awakening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgiNutr0pig
Compassion in Action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6UDmLbRSnw
‘Dalai Lama Awakening,’ which is a 15 year realization of a cinematic dream, presents the profound and life-changing journey of innovative Western thinkers who travel to India to meet with the Dalai Lama to solve many of the world’s problems. The result is an inner transformation of the participants, as well as what audiences report is a personal transformational experience for those who watch the film.
The new film was born from over 500 hours of video footage that was shot by 10 cinematographers over a 15 year period, and is a dramatically new “Poetic ReVision” and Director’s Cut of his award-winning Dalai Lama Renaissance which won 12 awards and screened over 1,000 times around the world.
As successful and inspiring as the original Dalai Lama Renaissance was, Darvich felt that there was adeeper and more meaningful story to tell: something that more poetically and purely spoke to both the filmmaker and audiences. Darvich felt that audiences could go deeper into the characters and discover something about themselves.
After personally appearing in over 400 film screenings and Q&As with Dalai Lama Renaissance and listening to the inner journeys of audience members, Darvich felt that it was time to go back to the editing room in a deep and contemplative way, and create Dalai Lama Awakening while incorporating the insights and reflections that he received during the thousands of conversations with audience members.
In 2011 and 2013, Darvich also travelled back to India and filmed additional scenes and cinematic shots to include in Awakening.
“Dalai Lama Awakening is the film that my heart and soul wanted to make. It is a film without compromise,” says Director Khashyar Darvich. “It is something pure, fulfilling and complete– a heart-felt expression from the filmmaker’s poetic soul. This is the film that inspired me and moved me at the most profound level, so I know that it will deeply impact audiences as well.”
Darvich’s screening and Q&A in Findhorn, Scotland, attracted the higher audience turn-out
for a film screening in the 50-year history of the prestigious Scottish community.
Dalai Lama Awakening also features innovative thinkers such as Dr. Michael Beckwith (from The Secret), Quantum Physicists Fred Alan Wolf and Amit Goswami (from What the Bleep Do We Know), Revolutionary Social Scientist Jean Houston and others.
Screenings and Q&As of Dalai Lama Awakening in the U.S. plus the recent UK/Ireland tour have been successful beyond what Director Darvich imagined. Most screenings have been sold-out with audience members commenting that the film has profoundly moved them.
Audiences who have seen ‘Dalai Lama Awakening’ (which is narrated by actor Harrison Ford) have called the film “Brilliant,” “Illuminating” and “one of the best possible manifestations of spiritualism through Art.”Another commented “I felt my whole being shift into compassion” and another that the film was “a journey of multi-dimensional beauty.” On the film’s Facebook page, someone who had watched the film wrote: “Truly a film of awakening. You will be moved.”
Dalai Lama Awakening will have its official World Premiere in 2014 in several countries around the world simultaneously. The film and Director Darvich have already attended many sold-out events during extensive multi-city tours of the film through both the United States and the UK-Ireland, and look forward to sharing the film with Australia in 2015.
“Since the goal and intention of our films is to serve the Greatest Good and offer a transformational and inspiring experience to audiences,” says Director Darvich, “I feel that it is important that I travel with this film so that the audience and I can speak and share the inner journey of personal transformation illustrated in the story, and so our moment together becomes a more magnified powerful and heart-felt experience.”
“After each screening,” Darvich says, “it felt deeply fulfilling that audience members would come up to me and tell me that they felt moved and even changed by having watched the film.”
Other upcoming documentary films from Darvich and Wakan Films (www.wakan.com) include “The Silence of Happiness” (about deaf children in Sri Lanka who overcome unhappiness and limitations through dance), a documentary film “Road to Happiness” (about an American woman who walked 25,000 miles across America for peace beginning in 1953), “Forgiving Buddha” (about prison inmates who transform themselves through meditation and deep honesty, and other transformational films).
To view the entire detailed screening and release schedule for the film, as well as receive the latest news, you may visit the film’s official website (http://www.DalaiLamaFilm.com) or Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/DalaiLamaAwakening)
You may view the trailer for the film, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgiNutr0pig
Additional venues and cities for film screenings and Q&As are being considered. Booking inquiries can be made to: Bookings (at) DalaiLamaFilm (dot) com.
Director Khashyar Darvich signing DVDs and speaking with an audience member after
a screening of ‘Dalai Lama Awakening’
Sign up for our Wakan Films email newsletter and receive the very first and latest news from Director Khashyar Darvich and Wakan Films about the release of our new inspiring films, and where they are screening near you.
Sign up for our Wakan Films email newsletter and receive the latest news from Director Khashyar Darvich and Wakan Films about the release of our new inspiring films, and where they are screening near you.
