gOD-Talk

The death of a Burkinabé family’s patriarch and the division of his estate unearths conflict between his heirs and larger questions about inheritance, belonging and the communal customs of West Africa versus Westernized courts.

A short film about the meeting of a Trappist monk and a Zen Buddhist master.

In this film we demonstrate atheists know God deep down despite professing the contrary. First, we show various proofs including scientific studies which indicate there are no atheists. Second, we show atheism renders basic things everybody agrees on meaningless. It is proved that atheism is unable to account for the validity of reason, empirical observation, the possibility of knowledge, moral absolutes, the uniformity of nature, the laws of logic, and human dignity. In fact, these issues render atheism impossible. We argue since atheists assume these things this means they are not atheists but closet believers.

A documentary exploring the rigorous training and meditation practices found at the Shōgen-ji, a Zen Buddhist monastery of the Rinzai school in Shimizu-ku, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan.

A documentary tracing the development of Shinto to the present day. Explores ancient ritual sites that are still used today, as well as major shrines and great works of Shinto religious art.

A documentary based on the book Umbanda no Brasil by the scholar Mata e Silva, who is interviewed by the director. The book studies the Brazilian religion known as spiritism, a syncretism of African beliefs and magical rites, Indian beliefs and images, and Catholic symbols.

On Valentine's Day, 1993, Caveh Zahedi decided to ingest 5 grams (a very large dose) of hallucinogenic mushrooms. For the first time in his mushroom-taking history, he had an experience of "divine possession," in which he felt that a divine being took possession of his body and spoke through him, in a voice that was not his, and with knowledge that he himself did not possess. He later tried several times to repeat the experience. I WAS POSSESSED BY GOD is the documentary record of one such attempt.