Blogging IDFA: Dinner with Filmmaker Velcrow Ripper

Filmmaker Velcrow Ripper editing his latest film, Fierce Light, which screened at IDFA.

I was delighted to discover an inspiring new film at International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) called Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action by filmmaker Velcrow Ripper and producer Cher Hawrysh.

Fierce Light is an exploration of the connection between the two driving forces in the filmmaker’s life—political activism and spirituality. The film explores how love, spirituality and positive forces inspire change, with interviews from spiritual leaders such as Thich Nhat Hahn, Alice Walker and Desmond Tutu.

Like the filmmaker, I have been involved with both political and spiritual communities and have often felt a strong and confusing gap between them. Fierce Light illuminates the growing movement towards spiritual activism—spiritual communities that are becoming more active agents of change, and political activists coming into closer contact with spirituality.

I had the pleasure of having dinner with Velcrow (an old nickname, he tells me) and Cher after the screening in Amsterdam. I felt very at home with them, finding connections in Velcrow’s history as a media activist, and in Cher’s involvement in a growing community of people interested in the work of the American “integral” philosopher Ken Wilber and his ideas on the spiritual evolution of consciousness. We discussed the making of the film and the hopes of the filmmakers. I was particularly impressed by the support they’ve gotten from the Canadian government, and by their creative partnership. Below are some highlights from the conversation.

On creative partnership

Cher and Velcrow are equal partners in their company, it is split 50/50. They have been working together since 2002. Velcrow says about Cher, “She’s the only other person as obsessed by film as I am, we never seem to get bored with it. We both have fire about getting the film into the world and helping it become a catalyst for change.”

Cher says, “We are also not afraid to make money! It is important to be commercially successful, that’s what will make it self-sustaining.”

Funding

Fierce Light was supported by the National Film Board (NFB) of Canada, the Canada Council, the Manitoba Council and others. They spoke of feeling blessed to have this support, and that the NFB shares the same vision and mandate they do—including a renewed commitment to movies that matter, movies that become part of a movement and reflect a zeitgeist and are catalysts for change. We discussed briefly the new Canadian Conservative government, and how if the Harper Government had gained a majority, Canada’s film funding would have been immediately cut. Luckily it was not.

The executive producer of the film is Mark Akbar, director of The Corporation, another Canadian gem. Akbar supported Fierce Light and other films with special funds he received from Canadian film funds for the success of The Corporation.

Production

Fierce Light was three years in the making, with a budget of $1.1 million, shooting 500 hours of footage.

Editing

Velcrow shot/directed and edited the film. He edited full-time, for eight months, in his house on Toronto Island, only taking a few weeks off to shoot another film. He commented, “With 500 hours of footage, one always has to sacrifice some brilliant interviews, but the film can only hold what it can hold.”

With some of this material he is making DVD extras, putting pieces on his website and making podcasts. He said that he edits while he shoots—he knows what shot he’s looking for while he’s editing, and he’s only looking for those gems.

Because the film is a poetic essay the metaphoric intent is what guides his editing. He said, “ I’m with Hertzog—facts are not interesting, for me its about the heart, what’s the timeless quality. Making something that is timely, and timeless.”

Distribution

The film is traveling the international festival circuit, and Velcrow and Cher were in the process of inviting distributors together to watch the film, renting out a screening room in Magno Sound because of the high quality audio.

The NFB is helping with Oscar nomination qualification process.

Their hopes for the distribution is to tap into global consciousness, into what is about to emerge in the evolution of consciousness and be a mirror to the process unfolding as well as part of the process—a catalyst. What happens then is that it gets taken up by people and it becomes their own, a discussion starter. They are hoping the film with show at a number of community-level screenings.

An experimental journey

Velcrow says: "This is not a leftist film. It is about compassion, about the transition from one form of activism to another. From anger-based activism to an activism focused on what we are for, that celebrates, that comes from the heart and the head and is founded in principal of inter-being—or Ubuntu—a South African term that is introduced in the film by a few people including Desmond Tutu.

"The film sets out to be an experiential journey, a spiritual experience in itself. The film is not just telling you about spiritual activism, but bringing you through a visceral journey right into the heart of soul force, a taste of fierce light for yourself."

On spirituality and action

Velcrow says: "My brand of spirituality is secular spirituality—it means I don’t belong to religious dogma or belief systems. I respect those who do, a community can be a container for discipline and support. But many of us are not joiners, I know I am not. And yet, I think each and every one of us is a spiritual being, we’ve been robbed of this by fundamentalism and cynicism. It’s time to reclaim spirituality and take it back.

"Old paradigm activism is lacking without spirituality, and transcendent spirituality, without grounding in the real world, is also lacking."

See more about Fierce Light at http://fiercelight.org/.

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