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DAVID WANTS TO FLY
a film by David Sieveking
a LICHTBLICK FILM and LICHTBLICK MEDIA production
co-produced by Dschoint Ventschr and Navigator Film
co-produced by BR, arte, SF and ORF
in collaboration with Filmstiftung NRW, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Kuratorium junger deutscher Film, FFA, DFFF, BAK, Zürcher Filmstiftung, ÖFI, Land Niederösterreich
distributors: Neue Visionen (Germany), Praesens (Switzerland), Poool (Austria)
world sales: Autlook Filmsales
HDCam / 97' / Dolby Digital / Colour
SYNOPSIS
To meet master film director David Lynch in person and talk to him about filmmaking! A dream come true for young David Sieveking, who first finds himself sitting face-to-face with his idol in spring 2006.
The meeting takes place on the periphery of a workshop in the USA where Lynch is giving a talk on the sources of creativity. Paramount among them is transcendental meditation (TM), a technique the cult filmmaker has reputedly practiced daily for over thirty years. But he had never before spoken about it in public. Could TM be the mystery behind Lynch’s dark, inscrutable films?
Although the location of the workshop – the Maharishi University of Enlightenment in Iowa – does strike David, the young filmmaker from Berlin, as somewhat strange, it is also mysterious and fascinating. Maharishi? Wasn’t that the legendary 1960s guru – guiding light of the hippie movement, savior of the western world and personal spiritual tutor of the Beatles? An entirely new chapter in the life of David Sieveking has begun. Fairfield, Iowa is a new world where everything seems possible – even flying, without the aid of any machinery!
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of Transcendental Meditation, promised creativity, health, professional success, world peace and no less than “heaven on earth”. David Sieveking decides to take the personal advice of the great David Lynch and begins to practice TM himself. Even master film directors start as novices, after all. And the best thing about it: TM is easy to do. Not cheap, but easy!
Funded by donations Maharishi and his followers built up an unparalleled global enterprise with the global headquarters in the Netherlands; a world peace center in India; a clandestine “TM world government” in the Swiss Alps; over 20 “Invincible Universities” have been founded and there are obscure gated camps dedicated to “yogic flying”. For the second time, David Sieveking discovers a whole new world.
The more research the young filmmaker does, the more discrepancies surface. Suddenly TM apostates start contacting him, former high-ups in the organization who claime to have been ruined by the Maharishi – financially as well as psychologically. Should he believe them? Is TM just a cynical money machine after all, as critics maintain, or a guru sect gone haywire?
Throughout the odyssee that follows David Sieveking never loses the sly sense of humor that gives this surprising film its strength, elegance and ambiguous charm.
TEAM
| Writer / Director: |
David Sieveking |
| Producer: |
Martin Heisler
Carl-Ludwig Rettinger |
| Coproducer Switzerland: |
Werner Schweizer |
| Coproducer Austria: |
Johannes Rosenberger |
| Commissioning
Editors: |
BR/arte - Jochen Kölsch, Monika Lobkowicz
BR - Claudia Gladziejewski |
| DOP: |
Adrian Stähli |
| Editor: |
Martin Kayser-Landwehr |
| Music: |
Karl Stirner |
| Sound: |
Johannes Schmelzer-Ziringer |
| Sounddesign: |
Björn Wiese, Stefan Soltau |
WORLD PREMIERE
IFF Berlin 2010 (opening film in the section Panorama Dokumente)
FESTIVALS
Diagonale -Festival of Austrian Film, Graz
Visions du Réel - Festival international de cinema, Nyon
BAFICI - Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independente
Dokfest Munich
Hotdocs, Toronto
Filmkunstfest Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Planete Doc Review Film Festival, Warsaw
Transilvania IFF, Romania
Festival des deutschen Films, Ludwigshafen
All About Freedom Festival, Poland
Moscow IFF
Documantarist - Istanbul Documentary Days
Message to Man St. Petersburg
Dokufest Kosovo
Vukovar FF, Croatia
Cambridge FF, UK
Camden FF, UK
Vancouver IFF, Canada
Der Film-Festival, Czech Republic
Kaunas IFF, Lithuania
Festival du nouveau cinema, Canada
Bergen IFF, Norway
Sao Paulo IFF, Brazil
CPH:DOX, Denmark
Festival dei popoli Florence, Italy
Aarhus FF, Denmark
Cork FF, Ireland
IDFA Amsterdam,The Netherlands
Palm Springs IFF, USA
German Gems San Francisco, USA
PRESSE
to the presspage
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2010
MY REINCARNATION
2010
DAVID WANTS TO FLY
2010
I SHOT MY LOVE
2009
FIGHT.OVER
2008
QI - THE CHINESE ART OF HEALING
2007
HIDDEN HEART
2007
THE CHAMPAGNE SPY
2006
BLOODY SUNDAY -
A DERRY DIARY
2006
HUNT THE KAISER’S CRUISERS
2004
THE FLAMENCO CLAN
2004
MASSAKER
2004
FACING THE DEAD
2002
MY FATHER, HIS FAMILY AND ME
2002
MORO NO BRASIL
2001
TALE OF THE WHITE WHALE
2000
OUT OF TIBET
1996
THE BIG PINK
1995
THE FINAL KICK
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