SAMSARA FILMS

 


PRESENTS

 

MAHA KUMBH MELA

 

A Documentary Film by Nadeem Uddin

Edited by Nadeem Uddin and Gordon Modin   Music Produced by David Brunn

 

PREMIERES NOVEMBER 12, 2004, 8 PM, TRAVELERS

510 E. PINE ST., SEATTLE, WA

 

Color                           Length:  62 minutes                          Language: English and Hindi (subtitled)

 

SYNOPSIS:

 

A great roving festival has moved around India for more than four thousand years, erecting temporary cities along the Ganges River where millions of Hindu faithful can gather to wash away their sins in the holy waters.  The Kumbh Mela is the “Festival of the Urn” that pours out the nectar of immortality.

 

The 2001 Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, India, was the largest gathering of humanity in recorded history.  It was not just the final Kumbh Mela in a 12-year cycle of festivals.  It was the final festival of 12 cycles – the conclusion of a giant 144-year cycle, making it “Maha” Kumbh Mela, the Great Festival. This 144-year buildup of spiritual meaning made it a powerfully auspicious time for pilgrims to bathe in the Ganges. Even the planets and stars joined in, providing heavenly alignments not seen for 144 years.  World history added the buzz of the year 2001, the 21st Century.  Thus, roughly 70 million people came from all over the world to pray for peace and rebirth for self and the world, truly a meeting of ancient and future in a remarkable moment.

 

Structure:  A cinema-verité observation of a massive gathering of pilgrims and teachers of many faiths, races and nationalities.  Very few direct interviews.

 

Key characters:

 

PILOT BABA:  A yogi who turned to religion after serving as a fighter pilot in the brief war between Pakistan and India in the 1970s.  His inclusive philosophy teaches the unity of all religions.  In the course of the mela he plays host to –

 

HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA: Leader-in-exile of the Tibetan people and the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual lineages.  He speaks to the meaning of major human events like the Maha Kumbh Mela.

 

2.

 

YOGMATA KEIKO AIKAWA: A Japanese yogini with an avid international following, she demonstrates an “underground samadhi” in Pilot Baba’s encampment – allowing herself to be buried alive in a 9x9 pit for three days, in deep meditation.

 

DR. ANDREW WEIL:  Renowned holistic medicine practitioner, author and teacher.  He interviews Pilot Baba about the physical practice of samadhi. 

 

SIR MARK TULLY:  Retired BBC journalist now living in New Delhi.

 

KALI BABA:  A Masai from Tanzania, Africa, and a longtime Los Angeles resident.  Speaking around a large plate in his lip, Kali Baba reflects eloquently on the esoteric implications of the Maha Kumbh Mela.  A profound intelligence shines through his extreme appearance.

 

LAURRIEN GILMAN:  American chef, entrepreneur, yoga student and world traveler, founder of the popular Gravity Bar restaurant in Seattle, WA.

 

Links:  www.kmp2001.com                  www.pilotbaba.org                   www.yogmata.org        www.kumbhmela.com            www.askdrweil.com

 

"Displaces a Westerner from everyday certitudes and opens him or her to the power of the Kumbha Mela experience and the consciousness people like [Yogmata] Keiko Aikawa seek. All in all a compelling cinematic experience."  --Harold Crooks, documentary film writer, The Corporation and Manufacturing Consent.

 

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS:

 

NADEEM UDDIN is a native of Bhopal, India, now residing in the Pacific Northwest.  He has produced and photographed programs for Indian television and social activist organizations.  He is a producer of a documentary on the 1984 Union Carbide gas leak disaster in Bhopal, India, which will premiere on Canadian television in December 2004 before going on to a theatrical run.  Uddin is the founder and President of Samsara Films.

 

DAVID BRUNN is an accomplished musician, composer, sound designer and audio engineer based in Seattle, Washington.  He has been a master performer and teacher of North Indian classical tabla for more than 20 years.  It was his vision of a “multi-media pilgrimage” to the Maha Kumbh Mela that resulted in the web site www.kmp2001.com and the journey to Allahabad portrayed in this film.

 

GORDON MODIN is the principal of Gordon Modin Video Production in Seattle, Washington.  He has photographed, edited and engineered audio for industrial and commercial projects around the Pacific Northwest.

 

SAMSARA FILMS can be contacted at (206) 334-0315 regarding screenings of MAHA KUMBH MELA.

 

 

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