Coleman Barks

I AM is an utterly engaging and entertaining non-fiction film that poses two practical and provocative questions: what’s wrong with our world, and what can we do to make it better? The filmmaker behind the inquiry is Tom Shadyac, one of Hollywood’s leading comedy practitioners and the creative force behind such blockbusters as “Ace Ventura,” “Liar Liar,” “The Nutty Professor,” and “Bruce Almighty.” However, in I AM, Shadyac steps in front of the camera to recount what happened to him after a cycling accident left him incapacitated, possibly for good. Though he ultimately recovered, he emerged with a new sense of purpose, determined to share his own awakening to his prior life of excess and greed, and to investigate how he as an individual, and we as a race, could improve the way we live and walk in the world.

A Thousand Years of Joy charts poet/activist Robert Bly's journey from Midwestern farm boy to global troubadour, bestselling author of Iron John and leader of the men's movement.

In 1244, Jelaluddin Rumi, a Sufi scholar in Konya, Turkey, met an itinerant dervish, Shams of Tabriz. A powerful friendship ensued. When Shams died, the grieving Rumi gripped a pole in his garden, and turning round it, began reciting imagistic poetry about inner life and love of God. After Rumi's death, his son founded the Mevlevi Sufi order, the whirling dervishes. Lovers of Rumi's poems comment on their power and meaning, including religious historian Huston Smith, writer Simone Fattal, poet Robery Bly, and Coleman Barks, who reworks literal translations of Rumi into poetic English. Musicians accompany Barks and Bly as they recite their versions of several of Rumi's ecstatic poems.

In 1987, Bill Cody and Tony Gayton filmed the seminal music doc Athens, GA - Inside/Out featuring R.E.M., the B-52's and Pylon, among many other bands. Thirty years later, Bill returns on a new journey that uncovers a Southern city that is leading the way in progressive politics and the beginnings of true racial equity. Once again featuring members of R.E.M., the B-52's and Pylon, only now bolstered by a new generation of artists and activists including Mariah Parker aka Linqua Franqa, Kishi Bashi, Patterson Hood and the Drive-By Truckers. Follow along the journey through the social changes that have come to the forefront of our American dialogue.