Radical Amazement: The Prophetic Life and Times of Arthur Waskow

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Radical_Amazement_trailer.mov

Budget

Raised to date: $1,000,000.00
Estimate to complete: $-494,827,296.00
Total Estimated Budget: $-394,827,296.00
The budget numbers above are accurate as of

Status

Research & Development

Media Type

Video

Project End Use

Key Personnel

Mark Lipman
Producer, Director, Editor
Mark Lipman has worked as a documentary filmmaker for over twenty-five years, exploring a wide range of subjects from domestic violence to human sexuality to affordable housing and community organizing. His films have been broadcast nationally on public television and won numerous awards. He has also produced media for public-interest groups throughout New England and has worked as a freelance editor at WGBH and other Boston-area companies. Before moving to California in 2004, he made programs for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum documenting the creation of new artwork by internationally renowned artists-in-residence. Most recently he completed editing work on Alaska Far Away, a feature documentary about a controversial New Deal program that relocated 200 destitute farm families into the wilds of Alaska. He is coproducing an update to his award-winning film on community development, Holding Ground: The Rebirth of Dudley Street. He has taught production and editing workshops for young people and adults and recently earned an MFA in filmmaking at the Massachusetts College of Art in conjunction with the completion of his most recent film, Father's Day. Since 1981 he has been a member of New Day Films, a distribution cooperative of social issue films, and has extensive experience promoting films to facilitate social change.

Helen Cohen
Producer/Director
Helen Cohen is an award-winning filmmaker and working artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Until the end of 2004, when she became an independent producer, Helen was co-director of Women's Educational Media, now called Groundspark, a nonprofit organization specializing in the production and distribution of social issue documentaries. She is the co-creator of GroundSpark’s acclaimed Respect for All Project, a program that produces cutting-edge films, curriculum guides and training resources to help prevent prejudice among young people. Helen spearheaded the Project’s outreach and teacher-training program, which has been recognized nationally as a model for using film to affect progressive social change. Cohen's producing credits include all of the films in the Respect for All series: It's Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School, the groundbreaking film for parents and educators that aired on over 100 public television stations nationally; That's a Family!, the inspiring, award-winning film for elementary school kids about family diversity that screened to a packed room of educators and child advocates at the White House in 2000; and Let's Get Real, a powerful documentary about young teens' experiences with name-calling and bullying that has been endorsed by the National Education Association, Teaching Tolerance, and many others. She is a long-standing member of New Day Films, a national cooperative of independent filmmakers who self-distribute social issue documentaries.

Arlene Goldbard
Executive Producer
Arlene Goldbard is a writer, speaker and consultant whose work focuses on the intersection of politics, culture and spirituality. She is the author of many essays and books, including her most recent book, New Creative Community: The Art of Cultural Development (New Village Press, November 2006). Her role in RADICAL AMAZEMENT focuses primarily on conceptualization, writing, fundraising and distribution. She has extensive experience in progressive Jewish organizing, having served as President of Congregation Eitz Or in Seattle, Washington, a leading Jewish Renewal community; as co-chair of the Board of Directors of ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, the national organization of the Jewish Renewal movement; and as president of the Board of Directors of The Shalom Center. As a consultant, she has worked with many leading independent media organizations, including New Day Films, the Independent Television Service, the Paul Robeson Fund for Film and Video and countless others. A full resume is available at her Website: www.arlenegoldbard.com.

Outreach/Engagement Plan(s)

We are deeply interested in stimulating discussion of politics and spirituality that avoids stereotyping and rigidity, granting these important subjects the complexity and attention they deserve. This film can help to create and nurture a dialogue about key questions of belief and activism, demonstrating how a fierce open-mindedness and willingness to weigh evidence can coexist with conviction that a larger force for good, existing within our own minds and in the external world, can guide our actions—and how the adherents of these views can communicate and collaborate with those whose own beliefs (and doubts) are very different. It will help to promote interfaith dialogue, especially around sore spots on the globe, such as the Middle East, and both within and between faiths, greater awareness of the role of spirituality in activism and the integral relationship between spirituality and healing the environment.

Toward that end, our distribution strategy includes three different categories of network:

(1) Issue-based secular progressive organizations promoting activism for peace and against militarism, for environmental healing and against the actions that bring about climate change, for racial and cultural equality and against policies that divide communities along lines of difference. Following is a partial list of organizations targeted for involvement:

Alliance For Democracy
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Antiwar.com
Bring Them Home Now Campaign
Campus Greens
Center for Community Change
Center for Constitutional Rights
Center for Economic and Social Rights
Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment
CODEPINK: Women for Peace
Endangered Species Coalition
Environmental Defense Fund
Farms Not Arms
Friends of the Earth
Global Action Plan
Global Exchange
Grassroots America
Greenpeace
Institute for Policy Studies
Iraq Veterans Against the War
Latinos for Peace
Middle East Research & Information Project
National Hip Hop Political Convention
National Lawyers Guild
National Organization for Women
National Organizers Alliance
National Youth & Student Peace Coalition
Natural Resources Defense Council
The Nature Conservancy
Trust for Public Land
Peace Action
PeaceMajority.org
RainbowPUSH Coalition
Sierra Club
Students United for Peace and Justice
TransAfrica Forum
TrueMajority
Union of Concerned Scientists
United for Peace and Justice
United States Student Association
US Peace Council / Greater New Haven Peace Council
Veterans For Peace
War Resisters League
Women's International League for Peace & Freedom
Working Assets

(2) Faith-based progressive organizations addressing social issues through a perspective informed by belief and promoting spiritual renewal within existing religions. These include interfaith groups promoting communication and understanding between individuals and communities of different faiths. Following is a partial list of organizations targeted for involvement:

Americans for Peace Now
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)
American Muslim Voice
Brit Tzedek v'Shalom
Buddhist Peace Fellowship
Catholic Peace Fellowship
Center on Conscience & War
Episcopal Peace Fellowship
FaithfulAmerica.org
The Fellowship of Reconciliation
Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization / Pastors for Peace
J Street
Jewish Funds for Justice
Jewish Peace Fellowship
Jewish Voice for Peace
Lutheran Peace Fellowship
Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
Methodist Federation for Social Action
NETWORK, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby
New Israel Fund
Pax Christi USA
Presbyterian Peace Fellowship
Sojourners Peace Ministry
Tikkun Community/Network of Spiritual Progressives
Unitarian Universalist Service Committee

(3) Jewish national and communal organizations of all stripes, particularly those groupings interested in specifically Jewish responses to social and personal challenges. Following is a partial list of groups with more than local scope. This group also includes rabbinic associations, seminaries and thousands of local congregations and community centers.

American Jewish Committee
American Jewish Congress
American Jewish World Service
Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life
Jewish Community Centers Association of North America
Jewish Labor Committee
Jewish Reconstructionist Federation
MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger
National Center for Learning and Leadership
National Council of Jewish Women
National Foundation for Jewish Culture
Ohalah
Reconstructionist Federation
Society for Humanistic Judaism
Union for Reform Judaism
United Jewish Communities
United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
Wexner Heritage Foundation
Workmen's Circle-Arbeter Ring

With respect to each network, we will pursue four strategies:

National Coalitions: Working with the leadership of national organizations and networks, promoting screenings and discussions at their conferences and workshops, devising initiatives to make screenings of the film and copies of its discussion guide accessible through newsletters, Web sites and other national outlets maintained by these organizations; and eventually, promoting the sale of home video copies.

Media Visibility: Arthur Waskow is a respected commentator on faith and activism, frequently interviewed and consulted for authoritative quotes on breaking news. He is collaborating on this project and is willing to support the film in partnership with the filmmakers, making media appearances to raise its profile in national print and online publications. His visibility should also ensure that the film is widely reviewed and discussed by national journals and Web sites. To provide material for outreach to media and the public, the film’s Web site will feature downloads of supplementary materials, a calendar of screenings and appearances, links to published reviews and interviews and a discussion area where users of the film can interact with each other and the filmmakers.

Strategic Outreach to Local Communities: Progressive activist and faith-based networks are made up of countless individuals working tirelessly to raise awareness of issues and bring about social change. Film screenings have been a mainstay organizing device in these local networks, a way to bring people together for shared experience that can inform and support their own activism. For example, Rory Kennedy’s Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, Deborah Koons Garcia’s The Future of Food and Sandi Dubowski’s Trembling Before G-d all reached vibrant, growing local audiences through this type of strategic outreach, as did It’s Elementary, That’s A Family, and Let’s Get Real, three films produced by Helen Cohen, one of the producers on this project.

Educational Use: We are producing a curriculum and discussion guide to support use of the film in both community and higher educational settings. In terms of college curriculum, the film will be an asset to classes in many different schools and programs, including schools of theology, peace and conflict studies, public policy programs, environmental studies and American studies. In other settings, local congregations and community groups will be able to use the discussion guide to plan stimulating programs of screening and discussion, using the film to invite community members into consideration of their own relationships to faith and activism. The guide will be available as a free download from the film’s Web site.

Funders

Name	Amount	Date
The Irving Harris Foundation	$10,000.00	10/17/2008

Location

1207 Melville SQ
APT 416
Richmond, 94804-4568

See Google Maps

Short Synopsis

This hour-long documentary film portrays a dramatic saga of spirituality and social change, tracing Rabbi Arthur Waskow’s 75-year journey from secular political activism to a deeply spiritual vision of personal healing and social change. Much larger than any single life, Waskow’s story encompasses the American peace, environmental and civil rights movements; the forging of African American-Jewish relationships; the unprecedented renewal of Jewish spiritual life through the remaking of ancient stories and prayers to speak to the present; and a deep commitment to fellowship and common purpose between the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Description/Treatment

RADICAL AMAZEMENT: THE PROPHETIC LIFE AND TIMES OF ARTHUR WASKOW is an hour-long documentary film portraying a dramatic saga of spirituality and social change, tracing Rabbi Arthur Waskow’s 75-year journey from secular political activism to a deeply spiritual vision of personal healing and social change.

Much larger than any single life, Waskow’s is a far-reaching story. It encompasses the American peace, environmental and civil rights movements; the forging of African American-Jewish relationships; the unprecedented renewal of Jewish spiritual life through the remaking of ancient stories and prayers to speak to the present; and a deep commitment to fellowship and common purpose between the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Few individuals have worked as tirelessly for social change, attracted such love and such outrage, and embodied so much of the spirit of the times as Arthur Waskow. Few have such a wealth of stories to share, and even fewer have Waskow’s storytelling gift to bring them alive. With an abundance of current and archival material to draw on, this film will be as inspiring, as richly layered and stimulating, and as provocative as its subject, accessible to a broad audience of activists and people of diverse faiths.

In 1996, Waskow was named by the United Nations one of forty “Wisdom Keepers.” In 2001, he was presented with the Abraham Joshua Heschel Award by the Jewish Peace Fellowship. In 2005, he was named by the Forward, the leading Jewish weekly in America, one of the "Forward Fifty" leaders of the Jewish community. In 2007, he was named by Newsweek one of the fifty most influential American rabbis, and has been presented with awards and honors by groups as diverse as the Neighborhood Interfaith Movement of Philadelphia and the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation.

Over the last 25 years, through The Shalom Center, Waskow has pioneered new faith-based approaches to the profound environmental and political dangers facing our civilizations. He is the author of more than 20 books. His writings and actions have highlighted the nuclear arms race and the danger of nuclear holocaust; he has been a prominent Jewish voice opposing the Iraq war and the use of torture by the U.S. government; as well as promoting a Palestinian state at peace with Israel. His focus on global environmental healing has especially drawn attention to the climate crisis , and created a new theology and practice of “Eco-Judaism.”

Waskow’s work to renew traditional liturgy and observance has fostered new forms and language of prayer. As a strong believer in interfaith healing and justice, he has brought together Jews, Christians, and Muslims to share their spiritual journeys, pray together, and call members of their communities to public events advancing the cause of peace.

Despite the incredible richness of Waskow’s personal story, RADICAL AMAZEMENT: THE PROPHETIC LIFE AND TIMES OF ARTHUR WASKOW is not a straight-forward biography. Much more than a personal history, it is the story of an era with its myriad political, social and spiritual forces, told through the life of someone who both lived and helped to shape it. The film will take the shape of a journey along a river with many tributaries. Waskow’s amazing life is the river that runs through the film, tying together the larger story and movements of his time.

Stylistically, the film will intercut archival materials with first-person interviews and footage of contemporary events, using Waskow’s story as a strong spine. The filmmakers have been given access to a wealth of relevant material, from original footage of the first Freedom Seder in 1969, held on the first anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination, to still photographs of gatherings and demonstrations, many featuring recognizable faces of spiritual leaders and activists; from a series of interviews of Waskow done by journalists and filmmakers over the years to a collection of original documents articulating the dreams and plans of generations of spiritually infused political activists.

Waskow is a gifted and delightful storyteller with an unending fount of fascinating and relevant stories, and he has granted the filmmakers carte blanche to pose questions and capture interactions. Activists, teachers and commentators—from investigative journalist Seymour Hirsch to Reverend Bob Edgar, head of Common Cause; from Dr. Sayyid Muhammad Syeed, secretary-general of the Islamic Society of North America; from Benedictine teacher Sister Joan D. Chittister to Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi—are eager to share their own stories and recollections for the film.

The film will be widely used by a range of educators and activists, including issue-based secular progressive organizations and their faith-based counterparts, as well as Jewish national and communal organizations of all stripes. We have created a four-part distribution strategy emphasizing work with national coalitions, taking advantage of Waskow’s media visibility, strategic outreach to local communities and educational use. We anticipate the film will also be broadcast on public television.

We are deeply interested in stimulating discussion of politics and spirituality that avoids stereotyping and rigidity, granting these important subjects the complexity and attention they deserve. This film can help to create and nurture a dialogue about key questions of belief and activism, demonstrating how a fierce open-mindedness and willingness to weigh evidence can coexist with conviction that a larger force for good can guide our actions—and how the adherents of these views can communicate and collaborate with those whose own beliefs (and doubts) are very different. It will help to promote interfaith dialogue, especially around sore spots on the globe, such as the Middle East, as well as greater awareness of the role of spirituality in activism and the integral relationship between spirituality and healing the environment.

The core team comprises filmmakers Mark Lipman (Producer, Director, Editor), and Helen Cohen (Producer/Director) and writer/activist Arlene Goldbard (Executive Producer). All have been widely recognized in their fields. Key events have already been videotaped, including the March 2009 Interfaith Freedom Seder in Washington, DC, the 40th anniversary commemoration of the first Freedom Seder. With additional videotaping of interviews to be carried out in the spring of 2010, the film is projected to be completed by early 2011.

Click here to ask for more information about this project:

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