A Conscious Cinema Celebration | 4th Annual AWARENESS FILM FESTIVAL | July 25-28, 2013

The Awareness Film Festival - awarenessfestival.org - is a dynamic festival promoting the awareness of world issues.

Santa Monica, CA.  The Awareness Film Festival is the festival that brings together filmmakers, artists, educators, environmentalists, alternative health practitioners and other industry professionals. It aims to inspire the public through this engaging, entertaining and unique annual event in the film capital of the world.

Themes represented in this year’s films include: green and eco-friendly living, homelessness, gang/felon reform, veteran’s issues, cancer survival, GMO’s, marijuana policy reform, couch-surfing community, pilgrimages, mental health stories, vision loss, women’s issues; stories of hope, the arts, spirituality, and current events and much more. Film presentations will be accompanied by filmmaker Q&A’s with talent in attendance. World premieres include 420: The Documentary, Authority and Expectations, C -- A Celebration of Life, Medium, Conscious Love, Charity, as well as 30 other features and 45 shorts from 17 countries (see full list below). Many films are award-winning, and many others are new to the festival circuit.

Festival prices range from free panels and select free screenings, to $11 for individual presale tickets, $14 at the door, to $175 for VIP festival passes.

Proceeds from the Awareness Film Festival benefit the non-profit organization 501(c)3 Heal One World. This Los Angeles-based charity offers yoga, tai chi and alternative treatments to members of low-income and underserved demographic groups. Heal One World seeks to  educate people and provide them access to preventative health care, integrative health modalities, natural non-invasive treatments, and self-help techniques for the body, mind and soul. In 2012, it was rated a Top Nonprofit by GreatNonprofits.

Heal One World organized the highly successful Zen Den at Sundance Film Festival 2013, where celebrities and filmmakers were treated to holistic treatments and yoga/tai chi classes offered amidst the chaos on Main Street in Park City. Zen Den will be represented again in Santa Monica.

New this year, the Awareness Film Festival is being co-produced by Intrinsic Values Films and receiving programming support from Gaiam Vivendi Entertainment, who is offering a first look distribution opportunity for the grand jury-winning films from this year's selections. In addition, the festival festival will be will be nothing will be sent to landfills, making it a Zero Waste event stemming from its collaboration with Zero Waste Co zerowasteco.com. By rethinking, recycling, composting, and donating waste materials, all waste will be diverted from landfills.

Each of the festival venues is located in Santa Monica, the 'jewel by the sea.’ The entire festival schedule* is as follows.

Aero Theatre 1328 Montana Avenue
Opening night Thursday, July 25
     Femme 7:30 pm
Closing night Sunday, July 28
See Me 5:00 pm World Premiere
G-Dog 5:30 pm

Magicopolis 1418 4th Street (Zen Den and Sponsor headquarters)
  Friday, July 26
    This Dewdrop World 6:15 pm
    Pad Yatra: A Green Odyssey 7:00 pm
    Home 8:30 pm
  Saturday, July 27
    Sacred Journey of the Heart 11:15 am
    Genetic Roulette 1:00 pm
    California Winter 3:00 pm
    The Hidden Hand: Alien Contact and the Government Coverup 4:00 pm            (second screen)
    420: The Documentary 5:00 pm World Premiere
  Sunday, July 28
     Sirius 1:00 pm
     Beauty and the Breast 3:30 pm
    The Paw Project 5:30 pm
    Awakening World 7:00 pm
    One Track Heart: The Story of Krishna Das 7:30 pm
    Closing Night Awards 9:00 pm

Promenade Playhouse 1404 3rd Street Promenade
  Friday, July 26
    Screen 1
    Authority and Expectations 7:00 pm World Premiere FREE to Veterans
    Red Reign 8:45 pm
    Screen 2
    Shorts Block 1 7:00 pm
    Shorts Block 2 8:30 pm
  Saturday, July 27
 Screen 1    
Panel 'Developing New Audiences for Film' 1:00 pm
Hungry for Change 2:30 pm FREE
    The People and the Olive 4:00 pm
    Graceland Girls 5:30 pm
    C -- A Celebration of Life 6 pm World Premiere
    One Couch at a Time 8:00 pm
    Screen 2
    Ride a Wave: Live and Love It Up 1:00 pm
    Diminished Chords 2:30 pm
    Young Voices Block 3:30 pm FREE
    Read Me Differently 4:30 pm FREE
    Youth Shorts Block 5:30 pm FREE
My Best Friend 6:45 pm FREE
    Conscious Love 8:00 pm World Premiere
Sunday, July 28
    Screen1    
Student Shorts Block 1:00 pm
    Panel 'Marketing Socially Conscious Films' 3:30 pm
    Charity 4:30 pm World Premiere
My Way to Olympia 6:00 pm
    Screen 2    
     Overdraft 1:00 pm
     J&J 2:00 pm
     Medium 3:00 pm
     Shorts Block 3 4:30 pm
     Shorts Block 4 6:00 pm
    Conspiracy Rising 7:00 pm

Santa Monica Laemmle 1332 2nd Street
  Saturday, July 26
    Driving Blind 11:00 am
  Sunday, July 27
    Talking Story 11:00 am

West 4th and Jane 1432 4th Street
Friday, July 25
      Filmmakers’ Party 9 pm – 12 am

*Screen locations of individual films subject to change due to demand.

Sponsors of Awareness Film Festival include Gaiam, Zevia, Venice Family Clinic, LA YOGA Magazine, Organic India Tea, Aware Guide, US Vets, Weleda, Heal the Bay, Stella Artois… more sponsors to be announced by festival time.

VIP ALL ACCESS PASS $175
Opening Night Reception and Film, All Screenings at all Venues, After Parties, Sponsor and Filmmaker Mixer, VIP for Closing Night Film.

ALL ACCESS PASS $59
All Film Screenings and Panels except opening night and closing night at the Aero Theater.

DAILY PASS Price $25
All Screenings at any theater for that day (Fri/Sat/Sun)- excludes the Aero Theater and Laemmle Theater.

STUDENT PASS $39
Same as All Access Pass.

INDIVIDUAL SCREENINGS
Select Free Screenings, $8 Students and Seniors, $11 presale, or $14 at the door

Awareness Film Festival
310-826-1971
awarenessfestival.org
pr@healoneworld.com

Like the Awareness Film Festival on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/awarenessfest

Follow the Awareness Film Festival on Twitter: https://twitter.com/awarenessfest

Controversial Filmmakers Announce Crowdfunding Campaign for Documentary to "Expose the Truth about Fracking"

"FrackNation" investigates the alarming and apparently misleading claims made about fracking, and looks at the benefits the process can bring to some of the poorest communities in the U.S. and across the planet.

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 7, 2012 -- Controversial filmmakers Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer announced a crowdfunding campaign today for their new documentary, FrackNation.

The feature-length film looks at the process of fracking for natural gas, demolishing much of the scaremongering surrounding the process and featuring the millions whose lives have been positively transformed by this emerging industry. FrackNation investigates the health claims surrounding the process, and reveals the startling lack of scientific evidence to substantiate them.

Controversially, McAleer and McElhinney are fundraising for FrackNation on Kickstarter.com .

"Normally, Kickstarter projects are pro-radical environmentalism," said McAleer. "FrackNation will be the first documentary funded through Kickstarter to challenge the environmental establishment. It will appeal to the workers and small farmers who know the truth, but never see it represented in modern documentaries."

In a unique fundraising move, McAleer and McElhinney, a husband and wife filmmaking team, have announced that everyone who helps pay for FrackNation will become an executive producer on the film. "This will be a documentary funded by the people for the people," said McAleer.

FrackNation comes on the heels of a new anti-fracking film is due to be released by activist filmmaker Josh Fox. Fox made Gasland, an Oscar-nominated film, which propelled fears about fracking into the public arena. Fox is now planning a HBO-funded Gasland sequel. Fox has received $750,000 to make the new documentary.

"The Hollywood/environmental establishment has wheeled out big bucks to tell its story," said Ann McElhinney. "We're just asking for $150,000. Ours will be a grassroots film telling real stories about real people across America and the world."

The filmmakers say the documentary was inspired when they encountered journalistic censorship. McAleer questioned Fox at a Q&A following a screening of the film, during which Fox admitted the people could light their tap water long before fracking was introduced. The "lighting water" scene is one of the most famous parts of Gasland, and led to many of the scares surrounding the process.

"I was shocked when Fox said this had existed in these areas decades before fracking. However, I was doubly shocked when Fox's lawyers contacted me to take down my video of our Q&A which I posted on YouTube," said McAleer. "Fox was trying to censor another journalist and that got me interested: What was he trying to hide?"

McAleer and McElhinney have already filmed in Pennsylvania, New York, California, Poland, and the U.K.

"FrackNation will feature small farmers, the working class and others who are benefitting from this economic boom. We will also look at the backgrounds and motives of those opposing fracking," said McElhinney.

SOURCE Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer