Bio

Karissa Tuthill Akin co-founded Après Visuals video production studio based in Jackson, WY with Amon Barker. The two were first introduced through their mutual love of the outdoors and soon realized their unique talents made a great team. Karissa studied marketing and was drawn to the creativity of production. Since beginning they have had the opportunity to bring on other inspiring creatives, travel to far out locations, and work with major clients. Après Visuals approaches every project with a true passion for collaboration and a great attention to detail.

Bio

Tamer Ashry is a director, producer, script-writer, and DP with over ten years of experience working in film and television in Egypt and the Middle East. His specialties are documentary, fiction film, reality TV and commercials. He is passionate about creating media that will have a social impact. His work has been screened at numerous international film festivals addressing issues such as sexual harassment, state violence (in The Morgue), daily life in Palestine (Pictures of Gaza), and the women’s fight for peace (Trials of Spring). His films have also been featured on several international TV channels including Al-Jazeera, BBC, and MBC. He has partnered with organizations such as the UN to create award-winning campaigns for human rights, gender equality, and child abuse.

Reflection

I loved doing this shoot. When i heard about Sacred I was interested in filming because I love the idea of seeing so many different sacred rituals across cultures and traditions. There is something universal about what we worship and hold sacred, and yet its form can be so diverse, unique, beautiful – so rich!

For this shoot it was tricky because the adhan is sung within a couple hours after the baby is born. I had 4 pregnant mothers lined up. I found them on facebook through friends of friends 🙂 I was on call, ready with equipment for a few days, waiting for them to give birth. I thought they might be camera shy at such an intimate time, but to the contrary, they were so welcoming and happy to share this experience with the world. At first, the baby was crying and everyone was a little nervous, but as soon as the father started to sing she calmed down.

It was so moving being part of this sacred moment which has a lot of meaning in Islam. It felt like she was really listening. Singing the call to prayer to a baby is almost like orienting them to what is important as they start their life. There are of course different interpretations but I sense it is a way of connecting the newborn to their spiritual life in these first precious moments – to mark the beginning of our journey towards finding Allah or God… which is perhaps why we were given life in the first place:)

Bio

Amon Barker co-founded Après Visuals video production studio based in Jackson, WY with Karissa Tuthill Akin. The two were first introduced through their mutual love of the outdoors and soon realized their unique talents made a great team. Amon is the son of a photographer who has always had a passion for image making. Since beginning they have had the opportunity to bring on other inspiring creatives, travel to far out locations, and work with major clients. Après Visuals approaches every project with a true passion for collaboration and a great attention to detail.

Bio

Arthur Bergart is a cameraman, a photographer. Having been finished St. Petersburg State University of Film and Television, he worked on TV (news and analytic programs). Then he began to explore the world through a camera lens independently. He lived in India and the Philippines. Arthur has presented his work in photo exhibitions. Now he collaborates as a cameraman with different studios in Russia and abroad.

Reflection

Our impressions of the filming for Sacred are very philosophical. On a planet where every hour 15,000 children are born, the phrase “child born today in hospital room No. 347” sounds very ordinary. No wonder. But when you see how in the hospital room No. 347 one tiny newborn gazes into a new world for him, how serious his expression is, while not crying – you keep in mind this expression. As the bright light! And it’s amazing! And you want to become cleaner, delicate, harmless for our world to not scare new people. Thank Sacred for thoughts born on the shooting at the hospital.

We are really proud to become a little part of your film!

Bio

Peter Eliot Buntaine is a filmmaker and freelance cinematographer residing in Ridgewood, NY. He has lensed Grand Clio and Emmy award-winning projects, and his short films have screened in film festivals, galleries and microcinemas across the country. In his commercial work-for-hire, he has collaborated with brands including the Clinton Global Initiative, Maysles Films, New York Opera Society, Toyota, United Nations Foundation, NRG, AOL/Huffington Post, ESPN, The World Bank, J Street, Timberland, Sierra Club, Water for People, and Earth Day Network. He is currently in post-production with his feature directorial debut, Church Forest. Peter also curates regular screenings of experimental and documentary cinema in New York and teaches cinematography at The New School.

Bio

Simon Busch finished his film studies at Dortmund Technical University in 2004. Thereafter he started his own business as a filmmaker. From the beginning he focused his activities on documentaries and arthouse cinema. He produced several films of his own and built up a sales and distribution company, which marketed films by Ron Fricke and Mark Magidson (Samsara) among others.

In 2012 he founded the Busch Media Group and together with his DP Alexander Sass travelled all over the world. His movie African Safari Adventure 3D led the documentary charts of amazon.de for many weeks. Currently, the climax of his work is Fascinating India 3D.

Reflection

At the Kumbh Mela, there were 35 million people – barely half of Germany’s total population – crowded together in only eight square kilometers. This is simply unimaginable! It was impossible to move forward by car or tuk-tuk. We had to struggle through the crowd on foot. Despite our press passes and shooting permissions, we were still not allowed to get closer than one hundred meters to those bathing.

50.000 policemen and soldiers controlled the site. It was their job to prevent a mass panic. We played cat and mouse with them. Time and again we were discovered and had to disappear into the crowd. Then we continued filming from another point. To get closer to the bathing pilgrims, we had rented a small boat to get us to the shallow waters of the Ganges just before sunrise. We were able to spend some magical hours until noon amidst the pilgrims, shooting continually, and wearing nothing but our underwear.

The pilgrims didn’t feel disturbed by the cameras. To the contrary, they were downright euphoric. They were happy to share with us this probably most important day of their life, which they had imagined with excitement for years. Somehow this happiness spread to us. I hope you can see this feeling in the movie.

Bio

Astrid Bussink (1975) studied fine arts at the Academy of Fine Arts AKI in Enschede and film at the Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland. During her studies she made the multi award-winning documentary The Angelmakers. After The Lost Colony, My Enschede and other internationally acclaimed documentaries, she directed a few children’s documentaries like The Hideout (Golden Calf for Best Short Documentary at the Netherlands Film Fest) and Giovanni and the Waterballet (Best Youth Doc at The Berlinale). She lives and works in Amsterdam.

Bio

Renaud Cohen received a degree in Chinese Studies and in Cinema from the French National Film School, (FEMIS). As a film director and fluent Chinese speaker, Renaud has made ten documentaries, several of which have screened in documentary film festivals around the world.

As a scriptwriter/director, Renaud directed two feature films, When We Grow Up (2001) and In Case I Don’t Win the Golden Palm (2012), two comedies that were selected in more than twenty film festivals around the world and won many awards.

His latest documentary film, Chinese Tobacco, is about a Chinese family running a bar in Paris. The film was completed in January 2016.

Reflection

Shooting breit milah ceremonies was a great experience. It was a nice opportunity to meet three different families at a very emotional and symbolic moment of their family life. The tired mothers, just one week after the birth of their sons, were not only anxious but also confident about what was going to happen. That day was both for the parents and the baby, the first opportunity to go out of their home, and for the baby to be introduced to the whole family and to the world as a new person. Our presence as outsiders filming the ceremony was adding to the importance of the event. In some ways, we were part of the ceremony, and each time we felt very moved by this welcoming ceremony.

Bio

Dinesh Deokota is a documentary filmmaker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. His film The Life and Times of Lachuman Magar won him an award at the Film South Asia Festival, and he also worked behind the camera in the award-winning feature documentary The Sari Soldiers about the lives of six ordinary women leading extraordinary lives during the civil war in Nepal. Dinesh works with productions companies from around the world and also shoots and edits most of his stuff himself.

Bio

Ayush Dinker is a 26 year old, self-taught filmmaker, based out of New Delhi in India. Ayush went to Birla Institute of Technology to become a Mechanical Engineer. Soon after that, he quit his role as an engineer and started Ethereal production company to pursue his interest to make films. Ethereal is now an online channel. Through Ethereal, Ayush does films on fact finding and trying to get at larger questions about human conditions. He says, “Travel forms an integral part of my being.”

Reflection

I have been covering Holi in Mathura for a couple of years now. The one word to describe my experience of filming there for Sacred would be ‘challenging.’ The job was to shoot during the festival of Holi with a teenager who is capable of articulating on camera what he feels about the spiritual and mythological significance of the festival. For the kind of visuals we were aiming for, Uttar Pradesh, the place where Holi originated mythologically, was the best option. The main challenge, however, was to find a suitable character in a rural setting—to whom I needed to convey the concept of the documentary being shot. I met young boys from eight schools in the locality before selecting two of them, with whom I finally shot. The technical challenge involved capturing broadcast quality video and sound, along with a small crew, right in the middle of a chaotic setting with the possibility of getting your camera and microphone completely drenched by the colored water being splashed while shooting. Discussing all these challenges and coming up with solutions for them with Tom was a great learning experience and I would say it helped me grow as a filmmaker.

Bio

Was born in a family of photographers, director of cinema for the University of Visual Art in New York and studied music for 10 years.

Lover of art and beauty. Composes music and invents choreographies. The techniques were inherited from previous generations. His true passion started when he was 5 years old when he decided to disarm the camera from his dad’s hands to understand what the people looked like through the camera.

Reflection

Something interesting is the fact that one person can see in three dimensions, but I can only see two. I’m practically blind in one eye which led to a lot of imagination and creativity in my work and photographs with 2 elements: the way I see, and the way I imagine. For these reasons, my photographs are full of feelings.

Bio

I am a Haitian-American filmmaker who has shared her life between America, Haiti and France. My sensibility, vision and cinematic language have been highly influenced and shaped by my life experience in all three countries. I fell in love with cinema at a very early age at the drive-ins in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The “electric shadows” on that glowing screen were a stark contrast to our realities and yet they deeply connected us to the outside world. Cinema became my own little sanctuary, my personal way of filling those chasms that were wedged by an insidious political system. I began seeing my parents and the adults around me like characters in a film that I was incessantly crafting. Today, after several decades, a few documentaries (including Ayiti Mon Amour, Broken Stones and Closer to the Dream), some fiction shorts, three narrative screenplays, and a couple of beautiful babies later, cinema is an organic part of who I am. Cinema is how I engage the world around me, how I denounce social and political injustice, how I explore haunting themes such as memory, exile, foreignness, and the unending search for home, while interconnecting our common global humanities.

Reflection

For having shot two films in Haiti in the past 4 years, my motto had become expect the unexpected then let the magic of cinema take over. And what better place to expect magic or miracle, than at the foot of the regal waterfall of Saut d’Eau? On the very first day of the shoot, as we were setting up our first segment with Adeline (a pregnant woman we casted during our research trip), out of nowhere a young woman clad in an indigo blue dress with white ruffles walked into our frame. She saluted the waterfall with song and dance and then made her way to the main waterfall and exited our shot. Later, I decided to approach her. She told me that she was the daughter of Vierge Miracle (Our Lady of Mont Carmel the patron Saint of Saut d’Eau). 30 years ago her mom made a pilgrimage to the waterfall asking for a child and the following year on the Day of the Saint, July 16^th, she was born.

It was like providence. Once again, I had surrendered to the Gods of cinema and it paid off. We were all completely charmed by Nadia and took great pleasure in filming her and listening to her unique story and songs and her sacred relationship with this mythical place.

Bio

Gerbert Floor is happily married and the father of 2 beautiful kids who inspire him to see the world as they do. At a very early age he discovered the movies. He fantasized about making real movies about discoveries, travel and science fiction. As he grew up, he never realized that filmmaking could be a viable option; instead he chose to study physics to become a meteorologist and later a physics teacher. Everything changed when six years ago he decided to buy a DSLR camera; the possibilities seemed endless and quickly opportunities came to make films for a living. He now travels the world and makes unique fine-art wedding films, as well as documentaries, short films and commercials.

Reflection

When my wife went into labor for our second son, Zion, we both were very calm and relaxed. For our first son we didn’t bring a camera, so very last minute we decided to film everything. I wanted to capture the emotional feel I had with the birth of my first son, the overwhelming feelings of responsibility, love, anxiety, joy and all the other emotions that flood you during those first couple of minutes after giving birth. I didn’t want to think about camera movement or framing, so I did everything handheld, with a single lens and without thinking too much about it. As a husband you feel helpless, and there is not much that you can do (except giving massages), so the camera gave me purpose. During the birth I forgot that I was holding a camera, I just kept filming while enjoying the experience. I think I captured the essence of the moment, it felt raw and pure. I have never seen my wife more beautiful and strong as in those moments.

If I am filming a wedding I want it to be all about the story of the couple. I felt that the wedding of Elbert and Anne Sascha was going to be different; they are open, creative and kind hearted and they had this amazing story. My favorite moment is when they share their vows with each other. I build my films around those moments. During these moments I try to come as close as I can (without disrupting the moment or getting attention) while filming handheld with a wide lens to give the viewer the feel that they are standing there as a witness.

Bio

David Gaynes is an independent filmmaker whose work has been presented theatrically around the world and is distinctive for its patience and earnestness. Next Year Jerusalem (2013) is a quiet meditation on the last stage of life and a pilgrimage taken by frail elders from a nursing home. The film was praised by the New York Times and many others upon its release in 2014.  Saving Hubble (2012) is an endearing portrait of everyday people and their desire to keep the iconic Hubble Telescope from becoming space junk. Keeper of the Kohn (2005) won multiple festival awards and tells the story of an autistic man caring for a dying friend. David is an accomplished documentary cinematographer, having photographed the award-winning All Me: The Life and Times of Winfred Rembert (2011) among other films.

Reflection

I have been honored to photograph and interview many people throughout my career – famous, infamous and entirely unknown. One of the great ecstasies of documentary work for me is talking to people who have no room in their lives for pretense. Carolyn Hess lives with the wisdom that the day she’s been granted is a gift, the next day is not promised, and through it comes an opportunity to transform the life of another person and better the world. She had an epiphany revealed to her at the time of her cancer diagnosis: rather than suffering under the weight of the existential crisis that terminal cancer brings, Carolyn could give the burden over to God and perform God’s work on earth while she still has time. I am amazed at the purpose of this woman, who spends much of every day in the same room, the same bed, and yet is alive and engaged in her world and work. I hope our short segment about Carolyn will inspire others – those who ostensibly have more time on earth ahead of them – to consider their earthly responsibilities in a new light.

Bio

Born in Huelva in 1973 but raised in Seville, after finishing high school he took a gap year in London before moving to Madrid in 1994 to study cinematography at T.A.I. School of the Arts. Graduated in 1997, he has been working in the cinema industry since then, credited as part of the camera crew in more than 30 feature films. In 2012 he shot 12+1. Una Comedia Metafísica, his first feature as DP, for which he got an ASECAN nomination for Best Cinematographer. After this came Carmina o Revienta and Carmina y Amen, both commercial successes and media phenomenons.

Anochece en la India, shot in locations around Andalucía, Turkey, Romania and India was his most recent feature film as DP. In the non-fiction sector, he has been working for Spanish TV channels like Canal Sur, Canal +, La Sexta and RTVE, as well as foreign channels like BBC (UK), ABC (Australia) and Discovery Channel (USA). Juan been shooting and traveling extensively around the world, including the United States, Nicaragua, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Morocco, Egypt, Thailand and most European countries.

Reflection

When I was a child Easter meant nothing to me but holidays, as my parents were both teachers and schools were shut down for those days. We would usually head out the city for the whole week so I don’t really remember watching any processions at this age. Later on, I moved to Madrid where there is a lack of tradition for this festivity. So in a way, Sacred gives me the chance to live the Easter tradition back in my hometown as I’ve never done before.

Following processions all thru “La Madrugá” (which actually means from midnight into the early afternoon) becomes an exhausting effort, but also an amazing experience to live. Bands of cornets and drums and the breathtaking “saetas” sung from the balconies to ancient religious images, young boys and girls going out all night for the first time in their lives, families who open their houses to us, sharing their food and drink and allowing us to join them while we shoot. All in an incredible and particular mix of faith, devotion and folklore that I will hardly forget.

Bio

Jeremiah Kent is a cinematographer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles, California. Jeremiah has developed an evocative style for visual storytelling through film and photography. Having traveled to over 50 countries all over the world, his unique and personal way of presenting his experiences features his eye as both an artist and a world traveler. When adventure photographer and writer Ryan Salm approached him about filming a cultural adventure film surrounding the Kumbh Mela in India, Jeremiah directed, shot, and edited his first feature length documentary. The Kharma Bums film truly highlights Jeremiah’s resilience both traveling and filming under extreme conditions. This beautifully shot and edited film is his debut as a documentarian. After studying Film and Electronic Arts at CSULB, he went on to study Cinematography at UCLA. He has been a member of the International Cinematographers Guild since 2004, and has been working in the film industry for 17 years. Jeremiah has worked professionally in every position of the camera department, and will continue sharing his remarkable images in his career as a documentary filmmaker.

Bio

Daniel Koehler began his filmmaking career directing, shooting and editing the award-winning short documentary The Tobacco King, which follows white Zimbabwean farmer George Botha’s efforts to cultivate a new life in Zambia after losing his home in Zimbabwe. The film played in film festivals across the United States, including Starz Denver where it received a Special Jury Prize for its “unflinching and nuanced portrait.” His next film, Win or Lose, which follows a photographer’s campaign against a discriminatory amendment to the North Carolina Constitution, won a Student Academy Award and premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival. From 2012 to 2014, Daniel worked with two-time Academy Award nominated filmmaker Marshall Curry in Brooklyn, New York. He collaborated with Marshall on his film Point and Shoot, which tells the story of a young Baltimore native who set off for Libya to join the rebels fighting dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival where it won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary. Most recently, Daniel received the inaugural Fulbright-National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellowship to spend nine months in Botswana making a documentary film about cultural change among the San.

Reflection

I grew up in Uganda, East Africa and witnessed many expressions of faith growing up – some interesting, some frightening, and some inspiring. When I was asked to shoot a scene at a Pentecostal church for Sacred, I was excited. I’m intrigued by the idea of interacting with the Holy Spirit and other principles of the Pentecostal movement. Over the past nine months, I’ve been working in and around the Ghanzi area in Botswana, Southern Africa, so I chose to shoot with one of the many “fire” churches there. I witnessed and captured praying in tongues, attempts of healing, and emotional outpouring, whether shouting, crying, or dancing. It was truly a unique experience, and I’m excited for others to share in it.

Bio

Priya is an Engineer by qualification. She worked in the field of IT in the US before she realized her creative potential. She is a filmmaker by passion and started RVR PRO, which is one of the fastest growing small-midscale production houses in India. She is married, with two kids, and often referred to as Super Mom by friends and family. Krishna Priya Maganti has been in the news many times for her multifaceted talents and for being a successful women entrepreneur. She specializes in script writing, direction, art, DOP, editing.. yes told ya, Super Mom, she truly earned it!

Bio

Filmmaker Julia Kwan, a second generation Chinese-Canadian, is a writer and director based in Vancouver. Her debut feature, Eve & the Fire Horse, met with critical acclaim after premiering at The Toronto International Film Festival and garnered several awards including at The Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize for World Cinema and The Claude Jutra Award at the Genies (Canadian Oscars). Everything Will Be marks Ms. Kwan’s feature documentary debut. The film received several nominations at the Vancouver Film Critics Circle as well as the Meilleur Espoir Award at the Montreal International Documentary Festival.

Reflection

Rosalind’s heart sutra mantra as well as the chants from the nuns at the Gold Buddhist Monastery reverberate with me well after the shoot. As someone just experiencing the beginnings of diminished eye range and night vision due to aging, I found that filming Rosalind, the gentle and wise Buddhist elder, was a profound reminder of the need to let go and to embrace the simpler life.

“When you get older, you don’t really like to have a complicated life”, says Rosalind, a Buddhist senior, who has recently taken up tai chi and is letting go of the worldly concerns of her youth. In Sacred‘s aging segment, we explore Rosalind’s quest for spiritual growth through Buddhism, the practice of tai chi and living the simple, “monastic” life in her twilight years.

Bio

Khin Maung Kyaw is a resident cinematographer and filmmaker at Tagu Films. He began his career in 2009 as a self-taught cameraperson in his hometown of Thanbyuzayat in Mon State. He graduated from the Yangon Film School in 2011. Since then, he has worked as an independent cinematographer for news agencies and shot several documentary projects, some of which have won prizes in local and international film festivals. His films include When The Boat Comes In, Home Work and The City Where they Live.

Reflection

When I was a child and did my own Shin Byu, I was afraid to sleep alone at the monastery. I had always slept with my parents before. So, this was my first time sleeping alone. But my mother told me, “You don’t have to be scared. You’re a monk now. Nothing can scare a monk. You have power.” Her words comforted me and I was able to sleep alone at the monastery.

The shoot went very well. We were fortunate enough to have a caring family who was very welcoming to our crew. Although the sun was extremely hot, the festivities made up for the extreme weather. Shin Byu is a time for a young man to become an adult after becoming a novice. Although I have been one myself, it was interesting to observe these age-old traditions as an outsider for the first time. For parents this is a time of immense pride and I was able to feel them beaming with pride on having become parents of a Shin Byu.

Bio

My name is Mohamed S Conteh aka Tyson, son of Pa Alimamy Conteh and Ya Dankey Mansaray, born in a family of three siblings. At the age of ten I lost my father and my elder brother became the sole provider of our family. When the rebel war reached Makeni, my sister was killed right in front of my mother and me, for denying to be raped. A few years later, my elder brother died suddenly of an undiagnosed illness, leaving back four children and his two wives. His death took with him my very life, my dreams. I had a mother and four children to provide for and send to school so I had to stop schooling and look for ways to raise money, starting with motorcycle (okada) transport rider. In 2009, I met WeOwnTv director Banker White and crew who provided me with the opportunity to learn about filming. That’s how I find myself in the movie world today, and now I am a founder and director of a local young film makers organization called Future View Film Group.

Reflection

Working with Sacred has taken my life to another level in filming. It was a learning process for me and I have built my confidence to believe that I can work with any film organization all over the world.

Although I was aware of the stigma surrounding Ebola survivors and Ebola orphans, when I was digging to find the subjects for Sacred, I found out that a lot is untold to the public. Through filming, we have saved lives by allowing them to tell their stories and giving them a sense of purpose and meaning. After the shoot, our subjects are now more welcome in their communities than before. I have been following up on them, especially Victoria and Mohamed, bent on doing anything within my capacity to help revive their lives.

Once again I want to say thank you to Sacred for giving voice to the voiceless and I want the world to know that it was an honor to work with Sacred from Sierra Leone. I enjoyed the experience and hope to continue working with many other film organizations.

Bio

Ramyata Limbu is the Director of the internationally acclaimed Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival (KIMFF).  She co-directed the award-winning feature documentary Drawing the Tiger, an intimate portrait of the price one Nepali family pays for a golden opportunity. The film premiered at Hot Docs Toronto in April 2015. She co-directed, co-produced and shot the award-winning independent documentary Daughters of Everest which followed the first team of all women, Nepali Sherpa climbers to ascend Everest. The film was broadcast on PBS. She also co-produced the award-winning feature documentary The Sari Soldiers about the conflict in Nepal told through the stories of six women. Ramyata has worked as a correspondent for various national and international publications and has more than twenty years cumulative experience as a journalist, communicator and researcher. She has also worked as a political officer for the United Nations Mission in Nepal.

Bio

James Longley is best known for the Academy-nominated documentary films Iraq in Fragments and Sari’s Mother.

Reflection

Several years ago I was scouting locations for a documentary film about a school in Pakistan, working together with local filmmaker Zayer Hassan. While looking at a possible school in the old city of Rawalpindi we discovered a branch of the Faiz-ul- Islam orphanage by chance. It was summer break and nobody was around. A government school was in a courtyard off a main road. An archway behind the school led to a mosque, and behind the mosque was an orphanage, where some 50 kids were living. The orphanage had existed since the founding of Pakistan and exists as both a religious and secular educational institution. Some of the boys only studied the Qur’an; others also studied in the regular orphanage school at their families’ discretion.

The boys in the orphanage come from cities and villages all over Pakistan, all from poor families. Some of them agreed to participate in the documentary and record audio interviews in which they talk about their experiences, ideas and dreams. Our idea was to explore Pakistani society through the eyes of the kids at the orphanage, many of whom travel back to their home villages during the summer.

Hakim Iqbal was the first boy who we recorded at the orphanage. Hakim comes from a village called Karak and his native language is Pashto, which is what he speaks during our interview. Zayer Hassan and I were struck by his friendly but sad disposition and his earnest way of expressing himself.

Sadly, our filming was cut short because of unrelated scandals between the Pakistani and US governments that resulted in many US passport holders being forced to leave the country, and so the film we had planned never came to be. Thanks to Sacred the material we filmed in Pakistan has been given a new context in which to be seen.

Bio

Michal studied film at the California Institute of the Arts and is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan, Poland. His latest feature-length film All These Sleepless Nights premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Best Directing award.

His previous film Fuck For Forest premiered at South By Southwest and Rotterdam IFF. The film is considered to be the most highly-screened Polish Documentary of 2013, being released cinematically in a number of countries. It was chosen by UK’s Dazed and Confused Magazine as one of the “top ten most innovative and genre-pushing docs of recent years.”

Michal’s first feature length film was At the Edge of Russia which garnered him the HBO Emerging Artist Award at Hot Docs and numerous other accolades at prestigious festivals.

Bio

Peabody Award-winning, three-time Emmy nominated director and producer, Hilla has been awarded the Paris Human Rights Festival Jury Award, Golden Warsaw Phoenix, as well as the jury award at FIPA and more. Hilla’s latest production Censored Voices (2015, BBC, ARTE, VPRO, Sundance Institute), a documentary about hidden recordings from the Six Day War, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and screened at Berlinale – Panorama, Hot Docs, IDFA, and BFI London, among others.

Hilla has explored the fraught relationship between Jews and Palestinians in her film To Die in Jerusalem (2007, HBO), about two teens killed in a suicide bombing. Dancing in Jaffa (2013) is a more hopeful portrait, following ballroom dancer Pierre Dulaine as he returns to his hometown to teach 150 Jewish and Palestinian 11-year-olds how to move gracefully together. Web Junkie (2014), dealing with Internet Addiction in China, which she co-directed and produced, premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. The Go Go Boys (2014), the inside story of Cannon Films, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

Reflection

As a mother myself I know the light my child brought into my life and I could easily relate to the desire to have children. When we started looking for a woman to film, I met women with very emotional and touching stories. Yael’s story was very interesting and raised questions of great depth. Yael has two children and she yearns for a third. She knows in her rational mind that she should be grateful for what she has and that her family is perfect as it is, but her heart wants this child and she can’t let it go.

Although Yael is secular, she sought solace in prayer and visited Amuka – an ancient burial place where women pray for fertility. I was moved by Yael’s determination and willingness to reach out to a power greater than herself. In Amuka, a place of spirituality and sanctity, I was overcome by a great sense of hope. It was my first visit to the site. The beautiful surroundings and its stillness intensified the feeling that the prayers were being heard and the experience of seeing all these women coming there was very strong. I hope Yael and all the other women I met during this illuminating journey find the answer to their prayers very soon.

Bio

Faith Musembi is a Kenya-born, South Africa-raised, US-educated writer, director and editor with a passion for storytelling through motion pictures. Faith graduated from Emerson College with a Master of Arts degree in the Visual Media Arts. Her thesis film, Dawn, which she wrote and directed, was an official selection for the Roxbury International Film Festival in 2010. Her feature script This, Our Africa was a quarterfinalist in the prestigious 2012 Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship competition. Her recent works include: Baileys Weddings with Nonny Gathoni and Omosh – which was selected as a finalist in the 2016 Kenya National Drama Festival. As the creative driving force behind Faimus Productions in Nairobi, Kenya, Faith is in constant pursuit of the wedded bliss evoked by the perfect marriage of color, moving images and sound.

Reflection

When Ben Kiruthi asked me to film his wedding, I was beside myself with elation. Then anxiety quickly set in as my eyes started to focus in on the reality and magnitude of the request. See the thing is, Ben is one of Kenya’s top wedding photographers. So I knew that there would be certain lofty expectations regarding his wedding video.

With my anxiety in tow, I made my way to the bride’s house when the wedding day dawned. Within minutes of filming my first few frames, my anxiety had dissipated. There was laughter, there was love – and our cameras simply rolled. So did the good times. By the time the couple were taking a selfie with Ben’s camera after their first kiss, it was obvious to everyone that we were witness to something pure and rare: true love. In that moment, I realized that even if Faith and Ben had been born in a different generation, they would have somehow found each other and fallen in love.

Bio

Emmy winning filmmaker and Independent Spirit Award Nominee, Mohammed Naqvi’s previous documentaries include Among The Believers, Pakistan’s Hidden Shame (Channel 4 UK, NHK, SVT), Shabeena’s Quest (Al-Jazeera), Shame (Showtime), and Terror’s Children (Discovery-NY Times). As a fellow of both the National Endowment of the Arts and the American Film Institute, Mo is also an alumnus of film festivals including Sundance, Toronto, Berlin, Pusan, IDFA, and Tribeca. Mohammed has also produced two narrative features Big River and I Will Avenge You Iago, and recently directed the short film “Happy Things In Sorrow Times”. Originally from Pakistan, Mohammed spends his time between Karachi and New York.

Reflection

Filming Sacred was somewhat of a spiritual reawakening for me. Like many Muslims growing up in a religiously conservative Pakistan – what I knew of Islam was filtered through religious clerics and I found their teachings limited and shallow. Consequently, I began to view Hajj and the rituals associated with my faith as nothing more than pomp and circumstance. Meeting Bashira, however, was a real eye-opener for me. Here was someone who had suffered immense loss and had spent much of her life in pervasive and consistent rage. By witnessing her preform Hajj and letting go of her anger, I was able to effectively transcend my own definition of Hajj. It wasn’t just about ritual – it was about cutting ties to your own narrative and being reborn.

Bio

Nyangchak is the founder of Ganglha, a hybrid organization with social enterprise and non-profit programs in the Tibetan areas of Qinghai Province, China. He also founded Friendship Charity Association (FCA), a grassroots NGO in Qinghai, where he has implemented over a hundred projects supporting education, water and sanitation, and cultural preservation for marginalized communities. Nyangchak has a great deal of managerial experience with development organizations. He earned a MBA degree at Ifugao State University and a MA in Sustainable International Development at Brandeis University, USA. He is also the author of A Mang rdzong Tibetan Life and The Last Dragon Banquet? published by Asian Highlands Perspectives. Nyangchak leads a small team to produce documentary films, preserving and disseminating Tibetan culture through audio-visual techniques.

Reflection

We are thrilled to be able to contribute a small scene of Tibetan culture to Sacred. We strive to sustain, innovate and disseminate cultures from the Tibetan Plateau. This mission is carried out in the hope of benefitting the local communities as well as those beyond the border by sharing and building a cultural understanding. Sacred has given us the opportunity to disseminate an aspect of centuries-old Tibetan prostration. A prostration is believed to be a spiritual activity showing reverence to the Three Jewels in Buddhism that in return benefit the practitioners, who accumulate merit, prepare their minds for meditation, purification, and so on. Our experiences in filming prostrations teach us that this activity also represents compassion, strength, faith, endurance, courage, and spirituality of the practitioners in the hope of others’ wellbeing beyond their present life.

Bio

Ken Okano is a producer/director based in Osaka, Japan. He has been involving in production for over 20 years. His career started at a production company in NYC; then he moved back to his hometown, Osaka, where he established his own production company, Spyce Media. From there, he has worked on numerous projects with production companies and broadcasters throughout Asia.

His signature project is Samurai of Fukushima, co-produced with History Channel Asia in 2012. He has also produced cultural and travelogue programs, and the company has often provided production services to foreign production companies and broadcasters. Currently, he is working on a documentary project for a Singaporean channel.

Reflection

Kaihogyo is one of the most difficult practices in Enryakuji temple. Only selected monks can try. So far less than 50 monks have completed this practice in the last 500 years of the temple’s history. Roughly calculated, it happens only once every 10 years. I am honored to witness and film this significant historic event for Sacred.

The shootings took place in the middle of the mountain in the dark nights. We had to walk and sometimes run on the trails where the monk walks thru. I felt that I was purified, and I appreciated to be a part of nature and the sacred ritual.

The monk told us that Kaihogyo is for the chosen people, but not for anyone. Thus, neither Enryakuji temple nor any monks want us to explore what is actually going on during the practice. We have limited access and restrictions regarding the shooting. Yet, somehow, we managed to shoot significant moments as well as beautiful scenes. Because of that reason, the scenes we filmed are very valuable and one of a kind. I hope everyone enjoys the scenes we filmed.

Bio

Award-winning producer Achmed Bodo Rasch was born in Stuttgart, raised and educated in Germany. Since 1999, Achmed produces and directs 3D animation films for the Holy Mosque in Mecca, and other major design projects. He has become a pioneer and acclaimed producer of visualizing complex technical films. An expert in scientific, architectural, and historical-cultural topics, Achmed Rasch is presently working on several theatrical and TV-documentaries, and currently in pre-production of his first feature film about the history of Arabs in Europe. His production company VISTA RASCH GmbH is based near Stuttgart, Germany.

Bio

Donna Renee is a freelance photographer and videographer. She has been photographing professionally since 2015. She went to Collins College for Film and Video Production from 2010 to 2012. “I’m proud to share my culture with the world being an Apache Native.” Donna Renee lives in San Carlos, Arizona.

Reflection

My cousin Irving Pike had asked me to photograph his daughter’s dance up in Point of Pines, Arizona. At that time, I thought I was just going to do photography only, but suddenly there I was filming the event and I couldn’t stop because everything about it was so beautiful. I had to capture this live moment for them because it was something they will continue to cherish when they see this. I loved every moment that I took video of during Jalen’s ceremony and try to be unique with each ceremony that I attend.

Bio

Oren Rudavsky is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. Rudavsky is the producer of the NEH funded American Masters documentary: Media Mogul: Joseph Pulitzer and the Power of the Press and the NEA funded The Ruins of Lifta. His film Colliding Dreams was released theatrically in 2016.

His film A Life Apart: Hasidism in America was short-listed for the Academy Awards and his film Hiding and Seeking was nominated for an Independent Spirit award.

Rudavsky was the producer of media for the permanent installations at the Russian Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow which opened in 2013. In 2011, Rudavsky produced a series of profile documentaries for Bloomberg television called Risk Takers. In 2009 Rudavsky was Producer/Writer of the two part series Time for School 3, a twelve-year longitudinal study examining the education of seven children in the developing world for the PBS series Wide Angle. In 2006, he completed his first fiction feature as Producer/Writer/Director: The Treatment, starring Chris Eigeman, Ian Holm and Famke Janssen. The film premiered at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival where it was awarded Best Film, Made in New York.

Rudavsky’s other work includes writing and producing segments for the ABC national series PrimeTime Live, the PBS series Media Matters, Religion and Ethics Newsweekly and other national programming. He has also worked as a post-production supervisor on the film unit of Saturday Night Live and the syndicated series Tales From the Darkside in the 1980’s.

Bio

Anna Rudikova is a producer from St. Petersburg, Russia. She is an author of her own projects on a Russian TV channel and studies documentary movie directing.

Reflection

Our impressions of the filming for Sacred are very philosophical. On a planet where every hour 15,000 children are born, the phrase “child born today in hospital room No. 347” sounds very ordinary. No wonder. But when you see how in the hospital room No. 347 one tiny newborn gazes into a new world for him, how serious his expression is, while not crying – you kept in mind this expression. As the bright light! And it’s amazing! And you want to become cleaner, delicate, harmless for our world to not scare new people. Thank Sacred for thoughts born on the shooting at the hospital and for the unconscious thrill to a woman waiting for the miracle of birth.

We are really proud to become a little part of your film!

Bio

Born in Bangalore, Karnataka, in 1986, Saumyananda Sahi was the youngest participant in the Talent Campus India (2004), and the Berlinale Talent Campus at the Berlin International Film Festival (2005).

Over the last ten years Saumyananda has directed many short films, and worked as a cinematographer with eminent directors including Anne Aghion, Kamal Swaroop, Deepa Dhanraj, Gitanjali Rao, Bani Abidi, Sunanda Bhat and Vasant Nath.

Reflection

Sacred is a celebration of the connectivity of human experience at a time when our politics is doing its best to divide, demarcate and exclude.

Further, I feel Sacred is an extremely important documentary in affirming a new method of working. The fact that in each country the crew was always local has made possible a narrative that feels universal and at the same time so deeply rooted. I do not know of any other film made quite in this way.

The making of Sacred reminded me of a passage from one of Ingmar Bergman’s essays on film:

“There is an old story of how the cathedral of Chartres was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. Then thousands of people came from all points of the compass, like a giant procession of ants, and together they began to rebuild the cathedral on its old site. They worked until the building was completed — master builders, artists, labourers, clowns, noblemen, priests, burghers. But they all remained anonymous, and no one knows to this day who built the cathedral of Chartres.”

I want to be one of the artists in the cathedral on the great plain. I want to make a dragon’s head, an angel, a devil — or perhaps a saint — out of stone. It does not matter which; it is the sense of satisfaction that counts.

Working on Sacred gave room for exactly this: a sense of satisfaction while carving out a small detail of a Cathedral I couldn’t even imagine. For this I thank the architect, Thomas Lennon.

Bio

Georgia is an experienced producer, director and editor. Her first documentary, set in Kenya, explored the threats facing a unique Swahili community on Lamu Island on the border of Somalia. She went on to set up GroundTruth Productions with her sister Sophia in 2012, producing films across Africa, Europe, the Balkans and the Middle East. Their first feature documentary film, In the Shadow of War, had its world premiere in 2014 at the Sheffield Doc Fest, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Award. The film had its international premiere at IDFA 2014 where it was nominated for the first Appearance Award as well as the Oxfam Global Justice Award. In the Shadow of War has since had over 10 festival screenings and launched an outreach campaign called The Generation Peace Project.

Reflection

Sophia and I have both spent a number of years making films with people and communities affected by conflict. We are particularly passionate about documenting how young generations, still forming opinions, hopes and dreams for their future, are affected by growing up in areas of conflict. Spending most of 2015 filming in Lebanon, we split our time between Beirut and Akkar (northern Lebanon). We were nervous being up north as it is an entire red zone and we were heavily advised by the UK embassy not to travel there. We ended up spending most of our time in Akkar on the borders of Syria. Sophia and I have now formed lifelong friendships with the Syrians and Lebanese we met there. The Syrian families we filmed welcomed us with open hearts and allowed us into their lives. Their passion and hope for a better future inspired and compelled us to make a film about the human cost of the Syrian war.

Bio

Sophia is an experienced producer, director and cinematographer, and has worked for organizations including the BBC and Channel 4. She has also worked extensively as a camerawoman across Africa and Asia on projects for the UN, PBS, CBC, The New York Times and Human Rights Watch.

Her first feature documentary film, In the Shadow of War, had its world premiere in 2014 at the Sheffield doc fest where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Award. The film had its international premiere at IDFA where it was nominated for the first Appearance Award as well as the Oxfam Global Justice Award. In the Shadow of War has since had over 10 festival screenings and has launched an outreach campaign called The Generation Peace Project.

Reflection

My sister Georgia and I have spent a number of years working together to make films with people and communities affected by conflict. We are particularly passionate about documenting how young generations, still forming opinions, hopes and dreams for their future, are affected by growing up in areas of conflict. Spending most of 2015 filming in Lebanon, we split our time between Beirut and Akkar (northern Lebanon). We were nervous being up north as it is an entire red zone and we were heavily advised by the UK embassy not to travel there. We ended up spending most of our time in Akkar on the borders of Syria. Georgia and I have now formed lifelong friendships with the Syrians and Lebanese we met there. The Syrian families we filmed welcomed us with open hearts and allowed us into their lives. Their passion and hope for a better future inspired and compelled us to make a film about the human cost of the Syrian war.

Bio

Originally from London, Brooklyn-based photographer and filmmaker Rachel Elizabeth Seed is currently in post-production on her documentary, A Photographic Memory, which was featured in the IFP’s Spotlight on Documentaries at Independent Film Week in 2014, won the Roy W. Dean Filmmakers Grant, and is fiscally sponsored by Women Make Movies. Rachel’s work has appeared in the New York Times, The New Yorker, TIME Inc., and New York Magazine. She has contributed cinematography to VICE as well as the documentaries Memories of a Penitent Heart, which premiered at TriBeCa 2016 , and Supergirl. Her photography has been exhibited with the International Center of Photography (ICP) and The Shpilman Institute for Photography and supported with grants from the Maine Media Workshops and the Kentucky Foundation for Women. As curator and exhibition organizer, Rachel produced “OCCUPY!” for the ICP, and assisted with PDN Magazine’s exhibit with the Annenberg Space for Photography in 2014.

Reflection

I waited for about five hours on a hot day in a slow-moving line filled with thousands of Pope-sighting hopefuls. Finally past the park entry, I broke free from the crowd to secure a spot near the road where the procession would be. After a few false alarms, the crowd erupted in cheers and tears during the brief sighting of Pope Francis’s Central Park drive-by, which most strived to capture for posterity on their mobile devices. Witnessing the event, I was surprised to be swept up in the waves of intense emotion myself, as the Pope passed through.

Bio

Felix Seuffert is a Cape Town based documentary filmmaker, cinematographer and photojournalist. His work is focused on social issues mainly on the African continent. After finishing his degree in Photojournalism at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hannover, Germany he resettled to South Africa and slowly traversed into the motion picture area.

His work has been broadcast on major international networks such as the BBC, arte, CCTV, Discovery Channel, screened in numerous film festivals around the globe, and printed in a wide array of newspapers and magazines, including Harper’s Magazine, GEO, Der Spiegel and the Sunday Times of London. His independent directing debut, Port Nolloth: Between A Rock And A Hard Place, an atmospheric documentary about the South African diamond mining town of Port Nolloth, has won three South African Film And Television Awards. Other examples of his work have won Best Cinematography at UNAFF and the SAFTAs as well as a Deutscher Reporterpreis. Felix’ corporate clients include BMW, General Electrics and Siemens.

Reflection

Many Malagasy people attribute immense power to their ancestors. It is therefore not surprising that honoring the dead plays an important role in their everyday lives. So much so that the Famadihana, the Festival of the Dead, every few years swallows up the modest savings of the whole family. Crypts have to be refurbished, shrouds bought, numerous guests fed and entertained. The resulting festivity is a moving reunion with dear departed family members for some and a funfair for others. For either, the consumption of large amounts of local moonshine is an essential part of the ceremony.

So, before we knew it we found ourselves in the middle of a mad rush of raw emotion somewhere between ecstasy and grief. The insurmountable language barrier wasn’t lowered by the level of intoxication on the part of the locals. Add the infernal and incessant noise from the ever-present brass bands and you have a shooting environment that is challenging at best. Trouble really started when our sound recordist got seriously ill with food poisoning.

Being invited to such an exclusive event in the end was a true privilege. I will not forget the sense of mystical awe that beset me when the massive stone gate of the crypt opened with a low rumble to let the party crowd enter the world of the dead. Resting in peace does certainly not seem to be something to aspire to in Madagascar…

Bio

Jonathan Stack is a multiple Emmy Award winning and two-time Academy Award nominated documentary filmmaker and has written, produced and directed over 25 films and 50 television programs including The Farm, which was honored as Sundance’s 1998 Grand Jury Prize winner. He has earned a reputation for gaining access into forbidden, hidden and dangerous worlds in his work including Liberia: An Uncivil War and Inside the Church of Scientology. He consistently explores difficult subject matter that often exists under intractably dark circumstances and despair, transforming it into stories of hope and possibility that reflect his ultimate belief – by telling positive stories one helps to create a more positive world. Once embedded in these worlds, Stack returns repeatedly, having made more than 10 films and television shows in Angola Prison, five films in Liberia and supervised and produced dozens of shorts in Haiti.

Reflection

There’s a long winding road that ends at the gates of one of America’s oldest and most storied prisons. A slave plantation from the 1700s, and a prison since 1901, today it is home to 6,300 inmates. I came here the first time in 1996 to make a film about a man on death row. I have returned consistently for nearly 20 years, compelled to tell the stories of these men, most of whom are serving sentences so long they will die here.

This time, filming for Sacred, they are are sharing stories about their own relationship with God and how through deep faith, they find freedom and purpose despite the barbed wire. None want to die here, but the men we follow are committed to bringing meaning into their lives. They say a life sentence is not that long compared to an eternity. There is wisdom to be found in a world where men have little material goods, where financial status is nonexistent and time ticks slowly. We reflect, share and dream about better days, but enjoy the ones we have together.

Bio

Eric West is a photographer and audio engineer living in Westchester, New York. He received his BA in Music at Hamilton College in 2004.

Reflection

There are many religious celebrations in Peru, but the Fiesta de la Virgen del Carmen is known as one of the most awe-inspiring and authentic festivals in Peru’s Sacred Valley. I was drawn to the participatory and interactive nature of the festival: the masked performers use the entire town as a stage set, often pulling in people from the crowd to join in the festivities.

Paucartambo has no hotels or inns, so visitors find boarding in local homes, or in our case, a local elementary school classroom. When it started raining on the second day, I assumed that the dancers and crowds would move inside, but the performances continued in the streets without any concern for the weather. This festival has a strict schedule that has been followed for centuries; it would take more than a downpour to halt the festivities.

This is a celebration that is experienced up close, and safety is not always a priority. Dancers, dressed as Yellow Fever-bearing mosquitoes, hit unsuspecting crowd members with yellow sandbags as they pass by; ritual clowns, called Maqt’as, use whips to clear the crowd to make openings for dancers to move through; in the evenings, troupe members run through the streets carrying large fireworks and jump over piles of burning wood, all just inches from onlookers.

The elaborate costumes, the fireworks, and the mountain setting were beautiful and amazing, but the intense devotion of the festival-goers made this festival stand out as a truly memorable experience.

Bio

Harel Yana lives in Munich, Germany and is originally from Israel. He works as a director and is the co-founder of Florentin Film production company.

Reflection

In September 2013 I spent the Jewish new year Rosh Hashana with my camera in Uman, Ukraine, my fifth time there. I’d been counting on this trip for a while since I felt all year long as if things were not going really the way I hoped for, and I felt as if the fact that I had not been to Uman the last year had a lot to do with it.

This time my older brother Elad joined me. He wanted to thank the Rebbe. Last year in Uman he prayed for a wife and soon after he found his perfect match and got married.

For me, Uman in Rosh Hashana is the ultimate party and purification ceremony, the only way I would ever want to start the year. A place and time where Jewish people from all ranges of society come together to celebrate, in something that for me resembles a great trance music festival, but without having to use any psychedelic substances, it somehow comes with the place. When you add Rebbe Nachman’s unique flavor to it, the picture comes into sharp focus, enabling us to view the day with a new clarity. We suddenly realize that a Rosh Hashanah with the Rebbe is not one to be missed: it gives us a chance to tap into the intrinsic power of the day itself. And, with the Tzaddik’s help, we can get the most possible benefit – opportunity awaits us.

Sacred gave me the opportunity to experience Uman through other people’s eyes, and furthermore to share one of the happiest and holiest festivals of the Jewish calendar with the world.