The Awareness Film Festival takes place at LA LIVE Regal Cinemas in DTLA. Jorja Fox (Actress & Activist), Ellie Laks (from The Gentle Barn Animal Sanctuary), Sara Cozolino (Photographer), and Mary Catalano (of Rescue Roundtable) are among those being honored for their advocacy and charitable work on October 15th.
The Awareness Film Festival – A Conscious Cinema Celebration – is a dynamic festival promoting the awareness of world issues. Bringing together filmmakers, artists, educators, environmentalists, alternative health practitioners and other industry professionals, the Awareness Film Festival aims to inspire the public through this engaging, entertaining and unique annual event in the film capital of the world.
The 7th Annual Awareness Film Festival takes place at LA LIVE Regal Cinemas in DTLA. The festival takes place from October 6th – 16th 2016 and will be honoring Jorja Fox (Actress & Activist), Ellie Laks (from The Gentle Barn Animal Sanctuary), Sara Cozolino (Photographer), Mary Catalano (of Rescue Roundtable), and others at the Vegan Honoree Dinner and Filmmaker Party on October 15th in Downtown LA. The Awards Ceremony and closing night party will take place on October 16th.
Themes represented in this year’s films include: the American voting system, green and eco-friendly living, homelessness, gang/felon reform, the foster care system, veteran’s issues, cancer survival, Animal treatment, GMOs, drug addiction, drug and policy reform, couch-surfing community, pilgrimages, mental health stories, vision loss, women’s issues; stories of hope, the arts, spirituality, and current events. Accompanying many presentations will be filmmaker Q&A’s, often with talent in attendance.
Proceeds from the Awareness Film Festival benefit the non-profit organization 501(c)3 Heal One World healoneworld.org. This Los Angeles-based charity offers yoga, tai chi and alternative treatments to members of low-income and underserved demographic groups. Heal One World seeks to educate people and provide them access to preventative health care, integrative health modalities, natural non-invasive treatments, and self-help techniques for the body, mind and soul. In 2012-2014, it was rated a Top Nonprofit by GreatNonprofits.
Festival Site: awarenessfestival.org
Tickets (Full Festival Pass, Regular, Senior, Student, & Military): awarenessfestival.org/tickets-passes/
Festival Schedule: awarenessfestival.org/2016-festival-schedule/
Press Credentials: awarenessfestival.org/press-pass/
Social Media Links: www.facebook.com/awarenessfest| twitter.com/awarenessfest | www.instagram.com/awarenessfest/
Honorees, Premiere Film Info, Stills, & Posters are available for press use only and can be downloaded here: http://bit.ly/2016AwarenessFilmFestival
FEATURE FILMS: PREMIERES
WORLD PREMIERE
Children Behind the Wall – Director: Marisol Gonzalez
Tijuana is the legendary border town between Mexico and the United States. It is also known as a smuggler’s paradise, a sordid town with an illegal traffic of people and goods. When families from all over Latin America fail to cross the border and reach the United States, they mostly stay in Tijuana and become addicted to drugs. Most parents abandon their children. Forced to fend for themselves in the streets, the kids follow in their parent’s footsteps and get trapped in the unforgiving cycle of drug dependency and thus fall into prostitution and violence. “Children Behind the Wall”, explores the complexity of this situation, through first hand stories told by some of those children who strive to liberate themselves from addiction.
WORLD PREMIERE
Choice – Director: Tony Simpson
Choice is about planting the seed of possibility that we could all live harmoniously, with each other, and with the planet. A shift in consciousness is required; a shift that starts with each of us choosing for inner peace. Individuals and communities are making that choice and the impact on their world is obvious: peace is possible.
We are led along the universal quest for inner freedom – the journey from suffering through to a highly effective and connected life. The team comprises successful film and documentary makers, including a BAFTA winning editor, and a double Emmy award winning cinematographer.
WORLD PREMIERE
The Jumper Maybach Story – Director: Alan De Herrera
The Jumper Maybach Story is the autobiographical tale of Ben Workman. The film chronicles the years of bullying and intolerance endured by Ben while growing up in the conservative state of Texas. As his story unfolds, Ben takes the viewer on a journey through space and time; illustrating how a lifetime of pain and suffering serves as fertile ground for enlightenment and peace.
The documentary features interviews with Ben’s attorney Mary Sinderson; celebrated equal rights activist Reverend Helen Havens; friend and painter/actor Pepe Serna (The Jerk, Scarface, American Me); Ben’s life-partner of 21 years David Sanford, and many others involved in Ben’s life and the equal rights community. The film also features a behind the scenes look at Ben’s “Jumper” work as an abstract painter and the emotions and positive energy that go into each and every painting he creates. Director Alan De Herrera paints a candid portrait of a man split in two halves, trying to become whole again.
WORLD PREMIERE
Living the Promises (Short Film)
Living the Promises captures the growth four people experienced during an equine facilitated workshop focused on recovery from living with addictions. Most of the participants had more than 15 years of recovery — so the focus was on expanding recovery and not the drama of addiction.
The fun and challenging part of the film is seeing how horses interacted with these participants and the varied insights gained from these experiences.
The stories speak to people who find themselves constantly seeking to do the right thing while still struggling to feel at home in their own lives.”
WORLD PREMIERE
One Voice – Director: Talora Michal
A conversation about the American voting system: if the contemporary vote counts, what is the responsibility of the voter?
In 2012, educator Talora Michal took a sabbatical from the classroom and teamed up with executive producer Georgia Van Cuylenburg (Baby Let Your Hair Hang Down) to collect win-win solutions to America’s most polarized problems.
100 speakers from diverse backgrounds were interviewed in six states. Each expressed a passionate desire for change, but many are confused if voting is still a viable means to achieve the desired end-goal. One Voice is a round table discussion designed to encourage every citizen to consider the power of an educated vote.
WORLD PREMIERE
Written Off– Director: Molly Hermann
Matt Edwards grew up in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, where the winters are long, they call the mosquito the state bird, and his hometown was so small that it didn’t have a single store. His first high came from pills prescribed by a doctor for a botched toe surgery.
For ten years he sweat out shift after shift in restaurant kitchens, working twice as many hours as anyone else so he could pay rent and feed his addiction.
Everyday there is another front page tragedy detailing another spectacular fall from grace. What is missing is real understanding of the complicated personal experience within addiction. How does a smart, loving, promising kid move from acting in the high school play to putting a needle in his arm? WRITTEN OFF reveals that journey, in Matt’s own words. Behind the addiction, there is a person – all at once lovable and despicable, funny and pathetic, young and old, destructive and aware of his failings.
WORLD PREMIERE (New Cut)
Falling Up! – Director: Stephon Litwinszuk
The portrait of Johnny Popp runs counter to many preconceptions of the homeless. Intelligent, gifted with a sense of humor and a philosophical attitude, he practices a brutally honest self-awareness. His concentration on one individual never limits the filmmaker. Litwinczuk finds the universal in the particular allowing to Popp stand in for the many disenfranchised.
WEST COAST PREMIERE
After Auschwitz– Director: Paul Blinkhorn
Hiding from the shadows of the past, Rebeka reflects on the paths not taken, of love lost and the moral obligations of being a survivor. After Auschwitz is a short film about survival, truth and reflection.
WEST COAST PREMIERE
Blood Lions– Directors: Bruce Young and Nick Chevallier
BLOOD LIONS is a feature documentary that exposes the captive lion breeding and “canned hunting” industry in South Africa. Lions bred for slaughter in South Africa is big business. Approximately 1000 captive-bred, hand-reared lions were killed in the country last year, and fueling a multi-million dollar
international industry.
WEST COAST PREMIERE
California High – Directors: Barnaby O’Connor & Matthew O’Conner
A balanced look at the controversy over the legalization of marijuana and its far-ranging consequences, focusing on California’s experience.
WEST COAST PREMIERE
The Caravan – Director: Margot McMaster
The Caravan film follows an eclectic group of international carriage drivers and horse riders as they journey across the American south from California to Florida over 5 months and 2,500 miles. This epic journey weaves its way through iconic landscapes, mountains, vast deserts, pine forests, Bayou’s and back roads of America. The film explores the complexities of group dynamics, the relationship we share with our horses in this modern world and the surprising connections made along the route by this group of relative strangers united by their love of the horse.
These travelers, young and old, set out to discover America, to challenge their skills, to fulfill a life time dream but what happened on the journey was far more profound.
WEST COAST PREMIERE
Foster Shock – Director: Mari Frankel
“Foster Shock” is intended to educate the public about how Florida ‘privatized’ child welfare and how this has led to massive amounts of taxpayer dollars being spent with little oversight and no accountability. Through stories told by former foster youth this documentary will reveal some of the worst systematic abuses and failures in Florida’s history by state and federally funded companies that were created to help severely abused children.
WEST COAST PREMIERE
From the Kill Pen – Director: Sharon Boeckle
In the Spring of 2013, it was discovered there were other global companies selling beef products containing up to 40% horse meat. The names were very familiar; Tesco, Birds Eye, and the international fast food chains, Taco Bell and Burger King.
Europe’s “Horsegate” as it became known, shocked an unsuspecting public around the world, but didn’t shock those in horse-related industries. That’s because those working horse racing, rodeo, and dressage are privy to a disturbing underground pipeline of which most of mainstream society is still completely unaware.
But the questions remain: Can the power of the pro-slaughter political forces be overcome? Can methods to safeguard our horses survive in an economy that profits millions by exploiting them? Will American culture do what is right, and end horse slaughter here and abroad for good? Can our government come up with a legal solution? Or, as From the Kill Pen asks… is government itself the core of the problem?
WEST COAST PREMIERE
InnSæi: The Sea Within – Director: Kristín Ólafsdóttir
In the inspiring and thought-provoking InnSæi – the Power of Intuition, Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir and Kristín Ólafsdóttir go on a soul-searching, global journey to uncover the art of connecting within in today’s world of distraction, disconnection and stress.
In the inspiring and thought-provoking InnSæi – the Power of Intuition, Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir and Kristín Ólafsdóttir go on a soul-searching, global journey to uncover the art of connecting within in today’s world of distraction, disconnection and stress. Illustrated with gorgeous animation and stunning imagery, InnSæi is a film like no other, and one that offers radical insights into how we think and sense the world today.
WEST COAST PREMIERE
Intimate Dance: Journeys Through Movement and Touch – Director: Sanford Lewis
AN INTIMATE DANCE: JOURNEYS THROUGH MOVEMENT AND TOUCH is a feature documentary following three transformative journeys on and off the dance floor. Albert, a skeptical beginner, is drawn to the embodied presence and connection of a dance form called contact improvisation. Eugene, an all-star athlete, stretches his physical and social limitations from his wheelchair. Rythea, a professionally trained dancer, is catapulted into a journey of self-discovery and healing. Each practices connecting with others across a point of physical contact, finding safety within the body, learning to be a witness to their own experience. What happens when we press to the edges of our physical and emotional capacities? Can we heal ourselves?
WEST COAST PREMIERE
Quiet Please… – Director: Jeffrey Gould
Imagine normal, everyday sounds consuming, dictating, and even destroying your life… Most people have certain noises that they find annoying; when you suffer from Misophonia, a neurological disorder – specific sounds could cause a physiological reaction, including: an adrenaline rush, rapid heart rate and a feeling of rage that needs to be released. While the film touches on a possible cause of Misophonia and the steps it would take to research it, the focus is on how the condition affects every aspect of a sufferer’s life. It eventually takes an emotional and psychological toll on the individuals and those closest to them.
WEST COAST PREMIERE
Sands of Silence: Waves of Courage – Director: Chelo Alvarez-Stehle
A 15-year quest to expose the underworld of sexual exploitation and trafficking from Asia to the Americas leads filmmaker Chelo Alvarez-Stehle to the windswept beach where her childhood ended and family secrets began. As she documents the transformation of sex-trafficking survivor Virginia Isaias—a Mexican American woman whose past is engulfed in a cycle of sexual exploitation—into a resilient survivor committed to break that pattern, Chelo undertakes a parallel journey of healing and introspection as she sets out to shatter the silence about abuse in her own life.
West Coast Premiere
Sincerely Me – Director: Des Matelske
Eli Johnson struggles through high school challenged by his self-loathing and the pressure to be “normal”. Due to the recent passing of his mother, Eli and his father are disconnected and in the dark. Bullied by his peers, he turns to prescription drugs to cope with his suicidal thoughts. Falling hopelessly for Addison McKnight, he looks to his love for her as an escape out of his deep depression.
Los Angeles Premeire
Crossing Bhutan – Director: Ben Henretig
Bhutan is known as the last Himalayan Buddhist Kingdom and one of the happiest places on earth. Crossing Bhutan tells the story of four veteran athletes and their journey to explore Bhutan’s enigmatic policy of Gross National Happiness by making the first 485-mile, border-to-border crossing of this isolated kingdom entirely by foot and bike.
Los Angeles Premiere
Carpe Kilimanjaro: An Alzheimer’s Story – Director: Zach Jordan
Carpe Kilimanjaro is the story of one man’s literal ascension of a mountain and his metaphorical ascension to fatherhood, in the face of his father’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis. His route to the summit mirrors the rocky path he faces, as he searches for paternal wisdom from a Spanish father-in-law and his own father, as the latter fades away.
Los Angeles Premiere
Fly by Light – Director: Ellie Walton
Fly By Light is an intimate exploration of young people seeking to overcome the violence in their lives and create a new path for their future by connecting to a world outside their neighborhoods.
Taken outside their comfort zone, and showered with support from caring mentors, we witness the city walls come down and their full selves emerge, armed with a greater sense of life’s possibilities. The film follows the four as they return home, where each continues over the next year to face different hurdles and roadblocks they must confront to build a better life.
The film provides a window into the immense pain and challenges that many young people carry today, while also showing their incredible capacity for transformation when given the support and tools to better understand themselves and their potential, and to connect with others in a positive way.
Los Angeles Premiere
K2 and the Invisible Footmen – Director: Lara Lee
In K2 AND THE INVISIBLE FOOTMEN, filmmaker Iara Lee and her team chronicle the lives of those who make possible ascents of the world’s tallest mountains, including both Pakistani porters and Nepalese sherpas. The film also follows the first official all-Pakistani climbing team, made up of former porters. This team successfully summited in 2014, on the 60th anniversary of the first ascent of the mountain. Amid breathtaking scenery, the film depicts the everyday sacrifices of porters and the courage of those indigenous climbers who choose to return to scale K2 in spite of past tragedies. In their striving to perfect their craft, these mountaineers provide a fresh look into the cultures and national traditions of Pakistan, a country typically portrayed in the foreign media as merely a land of conflict and sectarian strife.
Los Angeles Premiere
On the Brink: Uncharted Waters – Director: Vincent Soberano
“On the Brink: Uncharted Waters ” takes an in-depth look at whale shark interactions in the Philippines, where they have become a staple of the economy. The documentary seeks to answer the question: “Is the whale shark tourism industry in the Philippines conservation or exploitation?” By documenting industry practices never before captured on film, it exposes threats posed to whale sharks. The film also looks at the human aspect of the issue, and discovers how the whale shark tourism industry can continue to support locals without exploiting these now endangered animals.
Los Angeles Premiere
The Rebound – Director: Shaina Allen
THE REBOUND follows the underdog journey of the Miami Heat Wheels, a wheelchair basketball team, in their quest for a national title. Three adaptive athletes rally their team to victory while confronting obstacles on and off the court. The story is a visceral portrait of the athletes’ journey to realize their dreams while facing life’s biggest challenges.
PANELS:
- One World: Our Earth’s Fate Captured
- The Wow Factor: Your Budget Was How Low?
- Diversity in Action: Our New Palette Represented
- The Many Ways VR Is Shaping Our Imagination, Our Storytelling and Our Life
- Illuminating Illness Through Storytelling
- Calling the Shots: Depiction & Representation of Women in Hollywood
- Films For Your Future: Taking Command: Finding Purpose
- Destigmatizing Mental Health through Film
- Home is: the City of Angels on Film
- Creating Dialogue: Media for Social Justice
- Animals Rock Films Panel
About Heal One World
Heal One World also organized the highly successful Zen Den at Sundance Film Festival 2016, where celebrities and filmmakers were treated to holistic treatments and yoga/tai chi classes offered amidst the chaos on Main Street in Park City. Zen Den will be represented again as part of the Awareness Film Festival.
About the Awareness Film Festival
The Seventh Annual Awareness Film Festival is a unique event organized by Heal One World, a 501(c)3 non-profit charity that serves the community surrounding West Pico in Los Angeles, California. The Awareness Film Festival not only functions as a fundraiser, but also aims to inform and inspire audiences through a program of films that bring light to various ecological, political, social, health, and spiritual issues. We showcase documentaries, narrative features, short films, music videos, and public service announcements.
Our events include filmmaker Q&A’s, filmmaker panels, and conscious art and music. Our festival has screened a number of award-winning, hard-hitting films in the past six years. In 2012, Escape Fire was our grand jury award selection, a Sundance Film Festival Selection, featuring places such as Heal One World and how we can make our world a healthier place for all.
All net profits from this event will all go directly to charity, including our partner organizations. With the movement of the festival to the Regal Theatre last year, we have been able to expand the screening to more films and a larger audience. We would be honored to invite and have your client come to the festival to support this inspiring event.
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