Community through film

Today we showed the film to a new group of people in Blacksburg. About 30 folks stayed after the Quaker Meeting at the fine meeting house on Mt. Tabor Road to share the experience of watching the film. Afterward, Jane and I talked over lunch about what it feels like to sit in an audience and watch your work projected in front of others.

For me, each time I see the film I find myself criticizing small things in my head - little things that I might like to fix, color I'd like to correct, an audio level that I might want to make a little louder or softer in a few spots. But even more than looking at "mistakes" I catch myself wondering about the hundreds of things that fell into place during the making of the film. My favorite shot? It's either the hummingbird that appears as if on cue to drink from the flowers over Jane's shoulder during her first "interview" appearance in the film, or a low angle shot of goats coming toward the camera while I crouched down in front of them. Or maybe the cloth blowing in the breeze in the door of a monastery, or a shot Jenna got that pans down from the Phadmasambhava cave in Lo that shows just how treacherous the walk was, or the serendipity of capturing a bullseye during the archery scene...

But I digress. What I really want to say is that I'm grateful for the chance to watch the film in the company of others. We spent so much time huddled at our computers working on the film that to share it with others is a real treat. To hear people laugh, or gasp, or sob while watching is a rare chance in this life for affirmation that you've done a good job, and I think it will be awhile before we tire of watching this film in the company of friends. In many respects I think THIS film is especially suited to communal viewing. After all, some of its first screenings were projected on monastery walls in the restricted region of Lo, in Upper Mustang in Nepal, followed by intimate screenings at the Kathmandu residence of the American Ambassador to Nepal and an impromptu showing on the side of my brother's house in Vermont the night before his wedding.

Now, that said, we have just added a little "buy now" button to the blog, which allows you to purchase a copy of A Gift for the Village using your credit card and having it shipped anywhere in the US. We hope that if you DO elect to own a copy of our film, you'll share it with friends and talk about it after, just as we continue to do in screenings.
T.