For further information contact donbrown@hawaii.rr.com or call 223-0130

Confirmed speakers include Dr. Elizabeth Chen Christenson, M.D., Founder and Medical Director of CHI ( Comprehensive Health Innovations) Medical Center, who will lead post-film discussions for "Dances of Ecstasy" and "Touch the Sound" using a "therapy harp" to demonstrate the healing effect of sound vibration to our body through the inner ear-brain pathway and meridian-brain pathway. Dr. Desmond Wong will discuss Chinese herbals as valuable therapeutics after the February 9 screening of "Journey to the West: Chinese Medicine Today". Ayurvedic physician, Kishir Sagar Suhas, Director of Kauai Holistic Medicine, Dr. Tamar Hoffman, M.D., and Dr. Raj Kumar, Ph.D. will lead discussions after "Ayurveda". Director Francesco Gallipoli will conduct a Q & A after the screenings of his film "Qigong: Ancient Chinese Healing for the 20th Century".

The series is also supported, in part, by the Hawaii Health Guide and the Honolulu Weekly.

Thursday, January 12 at 7 PM & Sunday, January 15 at 5 PM

The Knowledge of Healing
Dir: Franz Reichle. Switzerland 2000 96m
The Gyuschi, the original Tibetan book of medicine, dates back to the 12th century and is one of the most highly developed healing systems in the world. This film presents evidence that it deserves serious consideration as a supplement to Western technology. The medications, comprised of herbs, roots, and minerals have achieved success with chronic illness regarded as incurable in the West. This film shows Tenzin Choedrak, a leading Tibetan medical authority, treating the 14th Dalai Lama, who argues forcefully for the acceptance of Tibetan medicine as a valuable addition to the Western system.

Thursday, January 19 at 7 PM & Sunday, January 22 at 5 PM

Encounters of a Healing Kind: Approaches to Alternative Medicine Prod:
Films Media Group. USA 2002 53m
Dr. Robert Buckman discusses the differences between conventional medicine and representative forms of alternative medicine while pointing out the similarities behind all forms of medical treatment, including a healer trained in the Hawaiian belief system of Huna.

Playing with:

Nutrition and Cancer Prod:
Films Media Group. USA 2002 21m
This program focuses on the relatively new field of nutritional oncology and efforts to prove the relationship between cancer and nutrition, including one conducted on Japanese-Americans with high-fat diets.

Thursday, January 26 at 7 PM & Sunday, January 29 at 5 PM

The Shaman's Apprentice Dir: Miranda Smith. USA 1998 54m
For more than 20 years ethno-botanist Mark Plotkin has searched the Amazon for plants that heal, on a mission to find a cure for diabetes, a disease that killed both of his grandmothers. In addition to Mark's discoveries, this film looks at the astonishing ability of these native people to manage their environment. One of the most stunning rainforest films ever made.

Playing with:

Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Mayan Healer
Dir: Guido Verweyen USA 2002 20m
American herbalist Rosita Arvigo, whose quest to explore the healing powers of plants led her to the rain forest of Belize, befriended one of the last remaining Maya shamans, Don Elijio Panti. While learning his secrets during her apprenticeship she unearthed her life?s work-- to preserve Don Elijio's ancient healing knowledge and to bridge the gap between science and traditional healer's wisdom. Funded by the National Cancer Institute in New York, Rosita Arvigo is in a race against time, scouring the tropical rain-forests of Central America in search of cures for many deadly diseases like AIDS and cancer, before the environs are wiped out by deforestation.

SPECIAL PRESENTATION ($10 for this film only)

Friday, January 27 at 7 PM & Sunday, January 29 at 3 PM

The Indigo Evolution
Dir: James Twyman. USA 2006 89m
Some believe there is a new type of human being coming into our world. Though no label fully applies, they are sometimes called "Indigo Children", described as being highly intuitive, and having "gifts" which they will use to heal our ailing world. This documentary questions whether these are only the fanciful notions of new-age beliefs, or whether there is evidence that they exist, why they are here, and how can we help them achieve their goal of creating a world based on compassion. Interviews with some of these children combined with discussions with authorities in the fields of medicine, psychology, education, philosophy, and religion provide information to draw conclusions to these questions. With Ram Dass, Dr. Masaru Emoto, Neale Donald Walsh, Michael Tamura, and Dr. Doreen Virtue.

Thursday, February 2 at 7 PM & Sunday, February 5 at 5 PM

Dances of Ecstasy (with Dr. Elizabeth Chen Christenson, M.D.)
Dir: Michelle Mahrer & Nicole Ma. Australia 2003 58m
A mesmerizing journey exploring how ritual dance and music are used by a variety of global cultures to attain spiritual enlightenment. Starting in a loft in contemporary Manhattan with New York urban shaman Gabrielle Roth, we travel to meet the healers of the deserts of Nigeria, the whirling Dervishes in Turkey, the shaman of Korea. Through detailed dance sequences and personal interviews, the film captures the spiritual intensity and joy of each culture.

Thursday, February 9 at 7 PM & Sunday, February 12 at 5 PM

Journey to the West: Chinese Medicine Today (with Dr. Desmond Wong)
Dir: Katy Chevigny. USA 2001 58m
Examining the roots of traditional Chinese medicine and its adaptation in this country, this film uses rare footage of traditional medical practices in mainland China intercut with interviews of leading Chinese medical practitioners here in the U.S. An insightful investigation of the connection between art, culture and medicine, it introduces a few of the diverse people who are devoted to this medical practice, including Dr. Ho, a self-taught herbalist living in the foothills of the Himalayas; Wu Zhongxian, a martial arts master who performs a wide range of indigenous Chinese healing methods; and students attending a modern-day Chinese medical school in Shanghai. Teachers, students and practitioners of Chinese medicine working in California and New York also showcase their work in contemporary Chinese medicine, offering a unique perspective on a growing cross-cultural phenomenon.

Thursday, February 23 at 7 PM & Sunday, February 26 at 5 PM

Ayurveda: The Art of Being (Dr. Suhas Khirsagar, BAMS, M.D. Ayurveda, Director of Kauai Holistic Medicine, Dr. Tamar Hoffman, M.D., and Dr. Raj Kumar, Ph.D)
Dir: Pan Nalin India 2000. 89m
Founded on the belief that human disease is cured by restoring an imbalance of individual life energies, Ayurveda supports diverse forms of treatment. Intuitively manipulating nerves that can either cure or kill, a healer displays amazingly intimate pressure point mastery. One wizened practitioner grinds precious stones into priceless medicinal powders while another shrugs off payment and brusquely dispenses treatment like a crusty country doctor. Whether documenting the catastrophic loss of potentially cancer curing herbs or detailing the mounting scientific evidence supporting Ayurveda's efficacy, this film retains an affecting sense of wonder.

Thursday, March 2 at 7 PM & Sunday, March 5 at 5 PM

Qigong: Ancient Chinese Healing for the 21st Century
Dir: Francesco Garripoli. USA 1999 60m
A unique look into the world where the greatest masters of this healthcare modality live and practice, such as the spry 92-year old Master Duan Zhiliang, whose mastery of Qigong has inspired thousands. Director Garripoli has learned from these masters and now teaches Qigong across North America and beyond.

Thursday, March 9 at 7 PM & Sunday, March 12 at 5 PM

Touch the Sound (with Dr. Elizabeth Chen Christenson, M.D.)
Dir: Thomas Riedelsheimer. Germany 2005 92m
Grammy-winning classical percussionist Evelyn Glennie is a consummate musician whose solo work is unrivalled. She also happens to be deaf. For Evelyn, sound is palpable and rhythm is the basis of everything. Without vibration, there is nothing. From silence to music, sound is felt through every sense in our bodies. Director Thomas Riedelsheimer (Rivers and Time) maps a world of senses, of transcendent images and evocative sounds, following Evelyn and her remarkable story through California, New York, England and her native Scotland. With music by Glennie and Fred Frith.

Thursday, March 16 at 7 PM & Sunday, March 19 at 5 PM

Healing Spirit
Dir: Hubert Schuurman USA 2003 57m
This film explores the human journey through life and death, illness and healing. It poses the idea that wellness is more than just the absence of disease and that healing goes deeper than simply curing symptoms. Disillusioned with the technological approach to health care, people are rediscovering spiritual traditions. They search for, and find solace in, methods that enable them to be healed by connecting with their inner spirit. Without exception, the patients in this film have used their pain as a pathway to healing rather than as an excuse to sink into self-pity and bitterness that might come with AIDS, Alzheimer's, cancer and depression. And, they have found release in viewing death as simply a completion of life. Several prominent physicians and healers are featured, including Dr. Deepak Chopra, Dr. Bernie Siegel and Marian Woodman.

Playing with:

The Laughing Club of India
Dir: Mira Nair. India 2001 35m
Five years ago in Bombay, Dr. Madan Kataria decided to find out whether or not "laughter is the best medicine." He gathered together a group of patients and neighbors to meet daily to laugh. After a time, Dr. Kataria found that the participants experienced improved health and decreased levels of stress. Thus was born across India the phenomenon of laughing clubs. Since then, clubs have spread to Europe and to the United States.

Thursday, March 23 at 7 PM & Sunday, March 26 at 5 PM

Ram Dass: Fierce Grace
Dir. Mickey Lemle. USA 2002 93m
Ram Dass remains best-known for his bestseller Be Here Now, a book which sparked a generation?s quest for meaningful spirituality. This film weaves vivid archival footage with intimate glimpses of Ram Dass today, as he continues to remake his life since suffering from a stroke--or in his words, ?being stroked?-- in 1997. While the illness might have broken others, it has provided Ram Dass with a new passion: using an unexpected, uninvited challenge as a tool for spiritual transformation, and using what he learns to help others face issues of aging, death and dying. Now, he has been forced to live his teachings in a way he had not expected. A lively chronicle of a life well-lived and a portrait of a spiritual teacher who has reshaped his physical limitations into an act of fierce grace.

Thursday, April 6 at 7 PM & Sunday, April 9 at 5 PM

The Tiger's Apprentice
Dir: M. Trinh Nguyen 1998, Vietnam 57m
The modernization of Vietnam has left little room for so-called "backward" traditions like folk medicine treatments. Armed with cameras and questions, director Trinh Nguyen traveled to a Mekong Delta village to learn more about her great-uncle?s traditional medical practice first hand. There she documented treatments for tumors and tracked down patients cured of gangrene and leprosy. Although her original intent was to investigate the effectiveness of the medical master?s cures, she realizes during the process that she was unwittingly becoming his apprentice. With few other students to carry on his legacy, her great-uncle hopes that part of his knowledge might live on through her.

Playing with:

Between Two Worlds: The Hmong Shaman in America
Dir: Taggart Siegel & Dwight Conquergood. 1985 USA 30m
This classic documents the Hmong refugees transplanted from their agrarian mountain villages in northern Laos to cities in the U.S. They bring their ancient shamanic rituals and ceremonies to urban America and in such unlikely setting trance-like healing and animal offerings are practiced as they were back home. Rare and dramatic footage of the Hmong buying and sacrificing a cow in rural Illinois to save a sick baby in a metropolitan hospital, point out the similarity between their beliefs and those of some Native Americans. The film also explores an unexplained phenomenon in which young Hmong men have died in their sleep for no apparent medical cause.

Thursday, April 13 at 7 PM & Sunday, April 16 at 5 PM

Powerful Medicine
Dir: Vishnu Mathur Canada 1986 52m
The history of medicine is largely connected to the knowledge of the curative power of plants. Today?s scientists and researchers know little of the complex chemistry in most of the earth's flora. Many of the last healers are disappearing and the knowledge of its medicinal properties is disappearing faster than the plants themselves.

Playing with:

Amchis: The Forgotten Healers of the Himalayas
Dir: Anoko Productions. USA 1980 52m
Zanskar is a valley tucked between the steep mountains on the border of the Himalayas, at an altitude of over two miles. In each village in this remote area of the world, there is a traditional Tibetan medicine man named the "Amchi." Since recorded history, the Amchi has passed his knowledge down from father to son, or from teacher to student. With the construction of a new road, however, the valley was left vulnerable to the outside world. Since then, the younger generation has rejected the age-old wisdom and practices of the Amchi, embracing more modern, lucrative activities instead. As a result, these forgotten healers of the Himalayas are perhaps the last to practice pure Tibetan medicine.

Thursday, April 20 at 7 PM & Sunday, April 23 at 5 PM

Shaman of the Andes
Dir: Steve Ford. Ecuador 2001 56m
Shot in the mountain communities of northern Ecuador, this film explores the fascinating world of the shaman of the Quechua Indians, and examines how this indigenous culture contends with the modern world. Viewers are taken on a journey into the ancient world of the shaman with captivating scenes of curing rituals shot inside the shaman?s consultorio. The film explores how ancient mountain gods, Catholicism, globalization, traditional healing and modern medicine are elements in the life of the shaman and the Quechua Indians. Not only the story of a traditional Quechua shaman and his culture, the film is also an exploration of a culture living in the margin between the traditional past and the modern world.

Playing with:

Kau Faito'o: Traditional Healers of Tonga
Dir: Melinda Ostraff. Tonga 2001 27m
Social practices grounded in Tongan notions of kinship and respect for elders and the "old ways" enabled this small nation to survive challenges ranging from ocean voyaging, battles between chiefly factions, and the arrival of trade ships and Christian missionaries in the 17th century. Filmed entirely in Tonga, we get a clear sense of the culture as well as insights about specialists in birth, fertility and infancy, massage and bone-setting, and medical plant knowledge.

Thursday, April 27 at 7 PM & Sunday, April 30 at 5 PM

Selling Sickness
Dir: Catherine Scott. USA 2004 52m
Drug manufacturers fund aggressive marketing campaigns designed to create public anxiety over even the most minor of ailments. Sales of anti-depressants such as Paxil, Zoloft and Prozac alone, have reached $20 billion annually. This film features paid medical consultants to drug companies, patients, researchers, advertisers, attorneys, and psychiatrist Dr. David Healy, a pharmaceutical industry critic. Scripted by Ray Moynihan, an internationally respected health journalist and author of the book ?Selling Sickness?, it reveals aspects of the drug trade not mentioned in commercials or magazines, including deceptive use of clinical trials sponsored by the pharmaceutical companies, and adverse side effects of popular anti-depressants. A vitally important cautionary tale.

Playing with:

A Touch of Magic: Treating the Person Inside the Patient
Prod: Films Media Group. USA 2003 53m
In this program, Dr. Robert Buckman seeks to distinguish the perceived merits of alternative medicine patient empowerment and holistic, "high-touch" care from its potential drawbacks, including the possibility that complementary therapies excite unrealistic expectations among patients. Best-selling author Dr. Bernie Siegel, Bristol Cancer Help Center co-founder Penny Brohn, Stanford University's Dr. David Spiegel, medical sociologist Dr. Barrie Cassileth, and others offer their distinctive points of view on topics such as the plausibility of a link between hope and longevity and the value of facing up to impending death.

Thursday, May 4 at 7 PM & Sunday, May 7 at 5 PM

Alternative Medicine: An Overview
Prod: Films Media Group. USA 2001 29m
This film provides an overview of Chinese and Indian medicine, homeopathy, herbalism, naturopathy, and massage. It observes patients who are using one or more of these therapies in their health care, and speaks with several experts including Dr. Andrew Weil, author of numerous books on integrative health; Dr. Christiane Northrup, an obstetrician/gynecologist and proponent of alternative medicine; Dr. Fredi Kronenberg, director of an alternative medical center at Columbia University; and Nancy Lonsdorf, a physician who practices both Western and the Indian system of Ayurveda in her practice.

Playing with:

Holistic Health From Hawaii
Dir: Stuart Cheifet. USA 2004 58m
Shedding light on a number of health concerns, this program attempts to provide answers to questions such as: Does acupuncture really work, and how; can heart disease be cured without surgery; is a natural Hawaiian herb a cure for cancer; and do yoga and meditation actually cause changes in physical health? It features interviews with Dr. Dean Ornish, developer of the Heart Healthy Lifestyle Program for preventing heart disease; actress Mariel Hemingway, author of "Finding My Balance"; Dr. Edwin Cadman, dean of the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawai'i; Dr. John Westerdahl, director of Wellness & Lifestyle Medicine at the Castle Medical Center; and Dr. Terry Shintani, director of preventative and integrative medicine at the Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center. The practice of qigong is explored by world-renowned expert Hong Liu. The curative effects of the Hawaiian fruit noni are also explored in a visit to the Cancer Research Center of Hawai'i. Produced by Andrea Dean with cinematography by Bob Stone.

World Healing in Hawaii
Dir: Bob Duerr. USA 2004 17m
This short tells the story of three Filipino children who come to Honolulu's Tripler Hospital to receive brain surgery for facial deformities and heal with aloha. The film highlights the groundbreaking shole healing of Hawaii's World Healing Institute, Operation Smile and the U.S. Army. With a slack key guitar soundtrack by Keola Beamer and Mark Nelson.

All films are $3 for University students and faculty / $5 general admission, unless otherwise noted.