Anything Can Happen in Wonderland…

Returning from the Sydney Film Festival, I am flying backward in time from Australia to America. I feel a bit like Alice in the Looking Glass.  The clock has stopped and I am forever young in my dreams. I left Sydney on Tuesday afternoon after a rich week of MY REINCARNATION screenings, discussions, meetings with distributors, and our first fantastic film review in VARIETY. Twelve hours of flight later, I arrive in San Francisco earlier on the same day I left – Tuesday morning.

Now, I am on the last leg home, air born to New York. It has been a long time since I have flown across America. From my window I see vast swirling, tan landscapes of desert, edged by sharp brown mountain ranges. The vision below is so much like the interior of Australia that I feel the distance between the two countries shrinking. I am a tired traveler and am glad to soon be home for the summer to teach at NYU Tisch Film School. Terra firma, stabile ground – at least for 6 weeks…

The last nine months have been a non-stop international tour for MY REINCARNATION and I. Starting this past year at the Leipzig Film Festival, with 13 festivals since, this last trip to launch the film in Poland and Australia was the end of the road (for now). MY REINCARNATION has been seen by one packed audience after another, received rave reports from viewers everywhere, and established itself it in the world as an important document that stirs people to consider their lives and the value of the Tibetan spiritual culture. While there are many more international festivals to come the rest of the year – including upcoming ones in New Zealand, Mexico, Lithuania, and soon in Russia– this return marks the beginning of focusing on the USA launch and the multi-city theatrical campaign across this vast country. (American Theatrical is the tastemaker for the rest of the world and crucial for the film’s world outreach.)

But before I go further, I want to give everyone a brief account of how those Kickstarter funds you helped raise will be used so that our efforts continue to be transparent:

Our campaign ended after having gathered an amazing $150,456, making MY REINCARNATION the number one highest raising crowd-funding campaign of any finished film in Kickstarter history. That is 300% more than our original goal. Of those funds, approximately $7,500 has not been collected (apparently this is quite normal as people promise funds they may not have at the time of collection or have had problems with Amazon, which can be tricky.) Of the $142,500 collected, 9 to 10% goes to Amazon and Kickstarter combined; 7% goes to pay our fantastic three-person team, who worked tirelessly and without pay to write our story, give updates, broaden our base, and now will ship those great rewards to you; and approximately another 5% to 10% will go to fulfill those rewards and send them around the world. (Please bear with us as we start this fulfillment endeavor beginning on July 5 through the rest of the summer.) The concrete monies received for MY REINCARNATION will be approximately $113,960. Of that, $100,000 goes to paying off the film’s completion costs – finally thanks to all of you! – and then $13,960 will go to start the extensive US theatrical campaign, which we have already begun to launch and plan for!

Just weeks ago, with those funds we were able to begin to hire a fantastic US Theatrical Distributor for our campaign. Moreover, MY REINCARNATION was accepted early decision to its USA Premiere Film Festival (mums the word), which will provide the launch for the film before the New York City theatrical premiere, October 28^th, 2011.  Save the date! (We are not allowed to publicly announce the distributor, the festival, or the launch cinema yet. Stay tuned! All will be public soon!) The film protagonist, Khyentse Yeshi, has graciously agreed to come to the States for the festival and theatrical launch to meet with press, talk with audiences and give Teachings around the events.

America is a crucial and uncharted market, ripe for this epic father and son story about the importance of the Tibet spiritual heritage. The film will be a fantastic source for conversation in cities across the USA to discuss topics such as family, religion, spirituality, Tibetan culture and more. Meanwhile, many foreign distributors and markets wait for the US press and box office, to support their decisions to book the film in their home territories. Let’s join together to make this USA campaign a huge success for the great impact it will have on viewers in the 30 to 60 cities across the USA and the message it will send around the world as to the importance of this crucial story for audiences everywhere.

As promised, we will now start raising the rest of the funds for the USA multi-city tour to make the needed $40,000 -$70,000 that this vital theatrical campaign will cost. People have already reached out to help this new phase of our MY REINCARNATION campaign by creating two upcoming “Sneak Preview Fundraising Screenings” planned in the next months where you can see the film and join the movement:

• Smith Rafael Film Center in California, USA, on July 17 at 7pm, co sponsored by the Buddhist Film Foundation and the Dzogchen Community West Coast. Click here to Buy Tickets and Get Information.

• Rich Mix Cinema in London, UK, on Sunday September 4, at 5 pm, sponsored by the Dzogchen Community UK. Tickets Go On Sale July 1!

The MY REINCARNATION movement is unstoppable! All of you are now part of the force to get MY REINCARNATION the world. You can continue to participate in this crucial film project by clicking Be A Catalyst or by purchasing one of the beautiful gifts in our fabulous Web Store. Every time you buy or contribute it goes directly to help the distribution of the film. No monies go to me personally, which is why I teach everywhere I go. All of your monies go directly to MY REINCARNATION distribution. I once heard that all innovators are always fundraising. Well, if that is true, then MY REINCARNATION is in good innovative company!

My gratitude to each one of you, 518 gorgeous patrons, for creating the MY REINCARNATION movement and to all of you who blasted, talked, shared, Facebooked, Twittered, Tweeted and generally spread the news of our film everywhere. Without you, MY REINCARNATION would not be able to sail across the globe and into theaters as it is doing now. You are my partners in this vast effort to reach every corner of the known world. Thank you so much. Let’s keep the MY REINCARNATION movement growing across the USA and the globe!

More precise information to follow about the MY REINCARNATION theatrical campaign soon…

Love & Gratitude,