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.”
“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 2012 film tour of the UK-Ireland of his award-winning Dalai Lama Renaissance was a huge success, and was enthusiastically received by sell-out audiences in over 45 venues in England, Scotland and Ireland. Darvich’s screening and Q&A in Findhorn, Scotland, for example, attracted the highest audience turn-out for a film screening in the 50-year history of the prestigious community.
Darvich and his new film will travel to the UK and Ireland in March and April 2014 for a number of Special Film Screenings and Director Q&As.
Over 25 UK-Irish venues have already confirmed and booked screenings, with more to be confirmed soon.
The film’s and Director’s current UK-Ireland tour schedule is:
SCOTLAND:
– March 10 – Oban – Highland Theatre
– March 11 – Isle of Skye – The Aros
– March 14 – Findhorn – Findhorn Universal Hall
– March 16 – Dunkeld – Birnham Arts & Conference Centre
– March 17 – Glasgow – Glasgow Film Theatre
– March 18 – Stirling – Macrobert Cinema
– March 21 – Dumfries – Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre
ENGLAND AND WALES:
– March 22 – London – Jamyang Buddhist Centre
– March 25 – Cheltenham – The Isbourne Holistic Centre
– March 26 – London – Evolve, a centre of evolution
– March 27 – Newbury – The Wellbeing Centre
– March 28 – Notting Hill – Nottinghill Arts Club
– Date TBA – Oxford – Oxford Picturehouse
IRELAND:
– April 6 – Cork – Triskel Arts Centre
– April 8 – Beara – Dzogchen Beara
– April 9 – Bantry – Maritime hotel
– April 10 – Killarney co Kerry – Venue TBA
– April 11 – Kenmare – Carnegie Arts Centre
– April 12 – Waterville – Tech Amergin Community Arts and Education Centre
– April 13 – Waterford – Garter Lane Arts Centre
– April 14 – Wexford – Wexford Arts Centre
– April 15 – Birr – Birr Theatre & Arts Centre
– April 17 – Belmullet, Co. Mayo – Aras Inis Gluaire
– April 19 – Bray – Mermaid Arts Centre
ENGLAND AND WALES:
– April 26 – Worcestershire – The Hanbury Village Hall
– April 27 – Norwich – Norwich Picturehouse
– May 2 – Caerphilly (Wales) – Venue TBA
– May 3 – Wales – Venue TBA
– May 4 – London – Documentary Film Society – venue TBA
* – additional English venue schedule to be released soon
SCOTLAND:
– May 6 – Edinburgh – St. Mark’s Unitarian Church
Additional cities and venues are being considered and confirmed, and will be announced soon.
The entire UK-Ireland schedule will be posted on the film’s website, here: https://dalailamafilm.com/
You may view the film trailer, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgiNutr0pig
‘Dalai Lama Awakening,’ which was 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 was 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.
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.
Audiences who have seen Advanced Screenings of Dalai Lama Awakening express that it is profound, emotional and powerful.
The first Special Sneak Preview Screenings and Q&As on the U.S. West Coast have been successful beyond what Director Darvich imagined, with sold-out screenings and audience members commenting that they have been profoundly moved by the film.
One audience member in Ashland, Oregon shared during the Q&A that she “sobbed while watching the film.” In Portland, Oregon, another member of the audience shared “I was changed.” 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 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.”
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 been invited for an extensive multi-city tour of the film through the United States and the UK-Ireland in March and April 2014, as well as to Australia later that summer.
“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 about “Peace Pilgrim” (and 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’
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