David Wants To Fly - Spiritual Enlightenment or Business

After having won an internet quiz with a main prize in a form of a 48-hour free access to an online film base, I am spending 2 days glued to my laptop screen, using the free access code up to the limit. As a result of that I have broadened my cultural horizonts and got to the level of intellectual enlightenment. And so I will tell you about an interesting documentary from 2010 I have just seen.

David Wants To Fly is a story of a German guy - David Sieveking - who wants to make films, but is not quite sure where to start from. As David Lynch is one of his idols, he takes part in Transcendental Meditation course organized by the acclaimed director. After having spent a few thousand Euros on seminars, he meets the leaders of TM movement and carries on meditating in order to calm down his crazy mind and pursue with the filmmaking career. He travels to India and meets religious gurus living high in the mountains, wearing orange robes and meditating on the real pursue of life. By some point he starts asking a question: "Where is the line between spirituality and business?".

The film is a documentary on TM organization and religion on the whole, but also the author's love life and spiritual journey. It ends with an interesting sentence: "When someone shows you the way, he may as well lead you astray". David Sieveking introduces us into the amazing world of spirituality, but then tells us that a bit of skepticism is not so bad at all.

SITA SINGS THE BLUES

Sita Sing The Blues
80 minutes animation
Pure beauty of sound and picture
Available totally free of charge
.

Sita Sings The Blues is an animation made in 4 different styles by an American artist Nina Paley. It tells a story of an Indian goddess Sita and her unconditional love for her husband Rama. Even though she is devoted and faithful to him, by some point he leaves her alone. She suffers a lot. At the same time we have a modern-day theme of a woman living in New York, whose husband gets a contract in India and goes there for a year. He breaks up with her through an e-mail. She loves him unconditionally and can't get over this. When she comes across a story of Sita, it helps her get through and become happy with her life. The films is narrated by 3 black characters- gods. Their conversation is a funny, smart and becomes a background for the story. They make the Indian legend understood to European or American viewer.

I love the animation, I must say. In many ways it's simple, but as an animator I know that this simplicity comes from a very good taste and intelligent planning. It has very good music and it's very ipressive. It uses songs of contemporary composers as well as of 920's and 30's American radio star - Annette Hanshaw.

Nina Paley decided to share her work online for free. The animation became incredibly popular around the world because of this. It is on Creative Commons Share Alike License. It by large means that you can use it, brodcast it and even sell it, but you can never say that you made it yourself.

Watch Sita for free here:

http://www.thirteen.org/sites/reel13/indies/indie-sita-sings-the-blues/241/

You don't need my permission to copy, share, publish, archive, show, sell, broadcast, or remix Sita Sings the Blues. Conventional wisdom urges me to demand payment for every use of the film, but then how would people without money get to see it? How widely would the film be disseminated if it were limited by permission and fees? Control offers a false sense of security. The only real security I have is trusting you, trusting culture, and trusting freedom."

- Nina Paley

http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/

These are beautiful words. Also see:

Free Culture Movement

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Culture_movement