Damah — Spiritual Film Festival in Seattle!

For all you west coasters there is a film festival happening in Seattle called Damah which looks awesome.  For everyone else, you can watch the short films online and vote.   They also have compilation DVDs of their  submissions from previous years.  Pretty neat.  The info is below:

October 2-3, 2009 in Seattle

EMP | SFM
@ Seattle Center
325 5th Ave N
Seattle, WA 98109

Mission

Damah encourages an emerging generation of filmmakers from diverse perspectives to voice the spiritual aspect of the human experience through film and provides a forum for these artists to develop, discuss and display their vision.

Damah is a non-profit organization that relies on the submissions, contributions and the goodwill of many diverse communities.

History

In January, 2001, a group of individuals met to brainstorm about how they could support artists who desired to explore spirituality. They had a desire to create an event where people from a wide spectrum of spiritual backgrounds could come together to form a community where ideas, thoughts and perspectives on the spiritual aspect of life could be explored through the art of the short film.

Out of this initial meeting, The Damah Film Festival, was born. With little time to prepare, this eclectic group of visionaries partnered with other like-minded film enthusiasts, and in October 2001, the first festival was held in Seattle, WA. It was an amazing success and we’ve never looked back.

We’re now in our 8th year and looking forward to what lies ahead.

Check out our Compilation DVDs.
Damah is the only short film festival with the unique focus of exploring the spiritual dimension of life through diverse perspectives.
We have awarded over $50,000 in prize money and received over 1000 film submissions from 20 countries over the past four festivals.
Our past festivals have featured Screenings, Panel Discussions and Workshops, Interactive Screenings and Q&As – all designed to stimulate discussion and provide a platform for spiritual expression.

Awaken! International Spiritual Film Festival

I am both so happy and so sad.  I was wandering around the internet (like you do) and I happened upon this film festival… Awaken! International Spiritual Film Festival: the first ever spiritual film festival in New Jersey, where I’m from.   And it happened a month ago and I missed it!  I hope that they hold it again next year, but who knows if I’ll even be here then.  Either way I wanted to share it with you guys.

I find trolling film festivals a great way to learn about small market films.  Unfortunately some of these films never even make it to mainstream theaters or DVD so it is hard to even see them without these festivals.  I hope to catch a few of these at some point.  It looked like a pretty good bunch of movies.

The winners for the audience choice awards were:

Feature-length Film:
Stranded: I come from a plane that crashed
in the mountains.

Documentary (up to 1 hour):
The Cats of Mirikitani

Short Film:
The Peace Tree

Family Favorite:
Raising Lucy

The Sun Valley Spiritual Film Festival

So I was wandering around wordpress and there was a “Hawt Post” about how bloggers can use twitter to help build their blogging community.  You can check that out here if you want.

Anyway, that led me to Twitter, which though I use I haven’t really gotten hooked on yet.  I figured I’d search and see what I found, figuring maybe there would be something I could blog about.  I typed “Spiritual film” and low and behold I saw some tweets about the Sun Valley Spiritual Film Festival.  I really like their mission statement:

The Sun Valley Spiritual Film Festival is a celebration of human spirituality through film.

Given this vision, the mission of the Sun Valley Spiritual Film Festival is to:

Present films that explore spiritual traditions from around the world, as well as films that cherish the human spirit. Encourage the production of new films and documentaries, by providing an event in which these films can be screened. Promote discussion among recognized leaders in the fields of arts and spirituality, by presenting interactive discussion panels. Offer the public an opportunity to engage with film-makers and spiritual leaders. Enhance the public’s understanding of, and respect for, diverse spiritual traditions from around the world.

It caught my eye and it turns out Sun Valley is in Idaho.  It’s a shame it’s not a month sooner since I will be spending the summer in Yellowstone National Park and could meander that way. They don’t have this year’s program up yet, but they have an archive of the films they’ve shown in past years.  Topics include films on Buddhist prayer, Mother Theresa, Dealing with Cerebral Palsy, the Aftermath of 9/11, Eastern European religious icons, and the comfort of pets to name just a few.  If you are in Idaho and feel like checking out some moving pictures, look them up.

The whole foray into twitter and finding this film festival has inspired me to post information about any film festivals I learn of that promote spiritual, religious, or inspirational films.  Maybe I’ll even start a twitter account specifically for this blog.