Nice to see that Last Train Home from EyeSteelFilm, the same production company that produced Up The Yangtze and the documentary Taqwacore, is getting a phenomenal reception. Ella Taylor from NPR writes:

And the Chinese documentary Last Train Home ended up as my favorite film of the festival, bar none. Director Lixin Fan followed a migrant-worker couple trying to get tickets for trips home to their village to see the kids they left with their grandmother years ago in order to earn a meager living. Watching this devastating portrait of a family trying to glue itself back together, you wonder how China, on its way to becoming the world's richest nation, will avoid civil war if it doesn't also attend to the needs of the millions of poverty-stricken families like this one.

It won the IDFA Best Documenatary Award and is apparently poised to storm America.

Most Americans have no trouble believing that God exists, but they are uncertain about whether an American ruling class exists. They seem to think the idea of a ruling class is restricted to European aristocracies of yore and assorted eastern potentates of today. In The American Ruling Class Lewis Lapham takes a wry trip across America, ostensibly to educate two fresh-faced graduates about the ways of power and privilege. Some of their interlocutors express puzzlement about the very idea of a ruling class in America, while others seize on the phrase with palpable disdain for anyone who has doubts about the concept. The result of these conversations is instructive and sobering; I was particularly struck by the sheer difficulty of living in America on a standard working wage—the kind a waiter might expect to earn. Clearly, some people earn too little, while others “earn” too much. Surely there can be no serious doubt that a minority of the population commands more power per capita than the majority: some people own disproportionately large amounts and have access to political power that is commensurate to their wealth. If that is what we mean by a ruling class, then there indubitably exists one in America. Read more on Colin McGinn Blog

Related: The American Ruling Class - Portrait of the Artist as a Young Fool (video)

"Fierce Light" bonus DVD feature "What is Activism?", featuring Starhawk, Congressman John Lewis, Dharma Punk Noah Levine, Van Jones, Kevin Teddi, Alan Clements, and Matthew Fox.

Related: Fierce Light - Revolution of the Spirit (bonus feature)

Fierce Light - The Shambhala Warrior (bonus feature)

PopMatters took a look at two latest aquisitions by Alive Mind Media that stresses their commitment to releasing “specialty documentary programming in the areas of enlightened conscious: "So Help Me God" directed by Simon Cole and "Meditate and Destroy" directed by Sarah Fisher:

Meditate and Destroy focuses on former bad boy turned author and Buddhist teacher Noah Levine. As much a teaching tool as a mini-biography, we learn of the drug addled and crime filled life that transformed this self-proclaimed punk into a force for good in the realm of spiritual guidance. While Levine’s story has much more dramatic punch, it is frequently compromised by director Sarah Fisher’s desire to hard sell the man’s ‘ministry’ and teachings. Cole, on the other hand creates a Religulous like experience in which questions of dogmatic inconsistency provide fodder for humor - and occasional insight.

Indeed, So…Help Me God accomplishes the basic tenets of its set-up. Cole comes across as good natured and genuine, never openly confronting his hosts like HBO pundit Bill Maher did during his documentary. Certainly he lets the subjects spewing hate hang themselves with obvious clarity (a family of rabid homosexual hating zealots are exposed for the robot minding morons they are), but he also wants to understand and experience the substance of religious devotion. After speaking with all manner of types - Muslim, Jew, Hindi, Buddhist, etc. - he decides to confront his quandary head on. Setting up a tent in the desert, he explores the reasons and the need for faith. His last act revelation falls in line with the rest of So…Help Me God‘s direct designs.

Watch «So Help Me God» trailer

Watch «Meditate and Destroy» trailer

I was inspired to make the Sacred Love-Making film because of my passion to see real-life couples have more meaningful, pleasure-filled sex lives.

For twenty years I have explored ancient, intimate traditions from around the world whose origins date back hundreds and even thousands of years. What I was always fascinated to discover is how many of the world’s older civilizations added a sacred dimension to sex. The act itself was filled with significance and a whole-- or “holy” sense-- of satisfaction. Sex was connected to health, to nature, and to energy. It was blessed by Gods and Goddesses. It could be an effective form of prayer. It could also bring about fertility of the land and its people, but above all sex was something that left a lasting, overall feeling of connectivity and wellbeing between the two intimate partners.

Today I feel these elements have been largely forgotten and even annihilated from the experience of sex. In fact, now-a-days people tend to do the opposite, which is to amplify the focus on the aesthetics of the physical body and exaggerate and distort physicality during the sexual experience. These are the “selling points” of pornography which produces shock, feelings of shame, inferiority, and a “carrot on the stick” mentality to having ultimate sex. Watching this kind of sex on film can produce arousal-- sometimes even lots of arousal-- and stimulation for the viewer and/or participants, but it doesn’t promote the overall nourishment and real connectivity that engaging in sex can bring.

In the Sacred Love-Making film I share the practical and sublime, intimate teachings of ancient China with two, modern-day married couples who are at different stages of their love lives. The first couple has been together for four years and the second couple has been together for twenty years. The couples are at a point in their union where they are ready to have a more satisfying sex life, and the audience can watch their journey unfold on film as they explore these little known Chinese sex practices.

The Taoist of China were some of the first people to develop a sophisticated system for sex dating back to 2 B.C. Their system went by many names, such as The Art of Love, The Arts of the Bedchamber, and Taoist Sexology. For the fortunate people who learned it, it provided a pathway to experience multiple dimensions within sex. It is incredibly physical, yet also heart centered and offers the opportunity to tangibly experience a spiritual connection with someone during the act of lovemaking, which is shown throughout my film.

I made Sacred Love-Making for anyone who wants to watch an adventurous roadmap for creating more passion, harmony, desire, and a deeper union with their lover. And forget “airy fairy, hippy dippy edutainment,”-- this is not that. The film is presented in a sophisticated, tasteful, ala French film style for the mature viewer. Sacred Love-Making allows the viewer to glimpse the truer essence of great sex in a way that is natural, beautiful, tasteful, and surprising in many ways.

"Revolution of the Spirit in Burma", featuring Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and Alan Clements, the first American ordained as a Buddhist monk in Burma, is one of the DVD extras launched in Canada.

In Religulous, Bill Maher was on a satirical quest to find God and understand religion while laughing at the extraordinary claims by the religious. The advertising guru, Simon Cole, took a completely different approach in his documentary film "So Help Me God." It’s not a comedy, but rather it is a drama – portraying a real spiritual quest to find God.

Instead of laughing at the religious and what they say, he listened and asked questions trying to understand God. Going from one religion to another, from one denomination to another, he begins to realize that the question is not only where God is, but who’s God is the right one. Everyone is convinced their God is the one, but how can you truly believe it if there are so many religions in the world?

It was delightful when occasional, genuine humor would distract you from the truth. While talking to Presbyterians about homosexuals one of the older guys, probably in his 70 said, "Don’t you love that all these fundamentalists quote the King James Version; and he was as queer as three dollar bill."

You can’t help but laugh.

If you want something refreshing, something personal, and powerful – watch "So Help Me God." As an atheist you will see religion from a different perspective and as a theist you will enjoy Simon’s search for God. It’s very healthy to search for the unknown as it takes courage, especially when the unknown defies the mainstream status quo.

A personal master piece that will leave your mind in a deep thought contemplating about your own spiritual state of mind. You owe it to yourself to watch it.

Read the original article here or watch «So Help Me God» trailer.

Meditate & Destroy is now accessible to viewers from the comfort of their homes or on the go exclusively via Alive Mind's Video On Demand service. Meditate and Destroy is an 81-minute documentary about punk rock, spirituality, and inner rebellion. The film focuses on the bestselling author of Dharma Punx and Against the Stream, Noah Levine. Tattoos, motorcycles, and Buddha are featured in this hard-hitting look at how Buddhism has a place in the world of punks. This inspiring film opens our perception to the possibilities of finding new paths- even in our darkest hours.

This film provides an up-close look at how the driving forces in Noah’s life changed from violence, addiction and rebellion to taking on the role of dedicated meditation teacher and community leader - an individual whose candor inspires others to integrate Buddhist teachings of nonviolence and inner peace with a Western lifestyle.

Available to all U.S households or mobile devices with a high-speed Internet connection, Meditate & Destroy will inspire viewers to embrace the transformational power of Buddhism.  Watch Meditate & Destroy now.

I hope you enjoy this quirky, unconventional film. 

Love and Light,

Sarah Fisher

The American Ruling Class has never been more relevant to the current news cycle or to the collective consciousness of the American public. Goldman Sachs is announcing record profits and it is the subject of a big Rolling Stone expose in which Matt Taibbi discusses "The Great American Bubble Machine," stating, "The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." Does Goldman Sachs still rule the world? Find out the back story with the feature documentary, The American Ruling Class.

Click here to read the rest of Taibbi's article.

The American Ruling Class is at its heart a classic coming of age story. Under the watchful eye of now former Harper's Magazine editor Lewis Lapham, our two protagonists, on the eve of their graduation from Yale, are faced with a decision: try to rule the world, or save it?

It's a momentous decision. But first, we make a distinction. If the graduates' aim is simply to be rich, than any investment bank will do. But if he is in possession of a little pluck and the ambition to rule, then Goldman Sachs is the place.

From Paul Rubin to Jon Corzine to Hank Paulson, men who have shaped the political economy of the country have done their obligatory stint at Goldman before casting the die of the world's destiny.

Do political parties and elections really decide things in America, or do investment bankers in the guise of public servants? Will our two young heroes go for the brass ring, or for something more intangible and far finer?

The American Ruling Class takes "Government Sachs," as The New York Times has called the firm, subtly, but with profound irony, to task.

What The Critics Are Saying:

"Dramatic, superbly produced and directed, thoughtful and thought provoking, The American Ruling Class offers a candor rarely glimpsed by ordinary citizens into who really calls the shots in America during these opening years and decades of the 21st Century."
-The Midwest Book Review

"A brilliant documentary/comedy, part Monty Python, part Michael Moore; brings to life the question: Can one join the power elite and yet work for the public interest?"
- Joseph A. Author, Power of Privilege: Yale and America's Elite Colleges

"The American Ruling Class is the most cinematically subversive film to come along this decade. Led by the extremely lucid and funny Lewis Lapham, the nation's number one intellectual treasure, the film takes us on a luminous quest... Director John Kirby has fashioned a sly film; it plays with form, but is populist in outreach, transcending documentary expectations with wit, style and political savvy."
- Peter Wintonick, Director/Producer, Manufacturing
Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media

"Hilarious, coruscating...a master class in master-of-the-universe studies"
- Tait Harlin, New York Magazine

"Divine madness...a documentary version of The Wizard of Oz ...
director John Kirby and Lapham attempt to illuminate the heart of darkness
inside the American political-economic machine. What they find ain't pretty."
- Matthew Hays, Montreal Mirror


Awards & Festivals

Special Mention, New York Loves Film, Tribeca Film Festival
International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA)
Woodstock Film Festival
Williamstown Film Festival
Two River Film Festival
Sedonna Film Festival
Rehoboth Film Festival
American Film Institute, Special Showing
American Cinematheque

Read more about The American Ruling Class below. To screen this film online, buy a ticket for $4.95. The ticket is good for one week. After this, the price of the ticket can be applied to your purchase of the DVD. Or you can buy the DVD now.

You might think you know what to expect of this film on the basis of the title. Yet, shoehorning So Help Me God into the category of spiritual documentaries would not be quite right, as the film is a highly personal story of exploration, brisk yet thought-provoking, not to mention visually captivating. Our protagonist is one Simon Cole, a well-off man, happily married and seemingly economically unburdened. Simon however carries a load he regretfully cannot drop off his shoulders--he greatly longs for a connection to God. This is a presence Simon does not have in his life and he is driven to at the very least understand it.

As such, he strikes out on the journey that will be the subject of the documentary, done in collaboration with his two brothers Ben and Nigel Cole. With a background in commercials, the brothers bring a visually expressive eye to the proceedings, adding a new dimension of sight and sound that keeps the documentary from slipping into dry discussion. It helps that Simon is a personable and earnest interviewer who does not hesitate to bare his regrets and fears to the camera. The film also benefits from a variety of religious figureheads who share their opinions with a candid openness that echoes throughout the film.

This is an honest attempt to explore one man’s religious conundrum, yet Simon personifies those of us who have questioned their faith or lack thereof. He is earnest and steadfast, a narrator without a shadowy agenda to ridicule or challenge the beliefs of those he encounters and questions. He is burdened by his dilemma and seeks an answer to it in any way he knows how. The final scenes of Simon isolating himself to the desert for some serious soul-searching are among the most emotionally affecting in the film – you can see the exhaustion and difficulty to cope transcribed on Simon’s face. So Help Me God is his story, and it is an exhilarating one.