FILM SYNOPSIS

Incarcerated youth learn mindfulness meditation from former felons to help them navigate the struggles of life behind bars, and the even greater challenges that await them on the outside.

Heavily Meditated documents three years of the lives of five inmates at MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility who are learning mindfulness skills from former felons to help them rebuild their lives both in and out of prison. These young men were tried as adults under Measure 11 and are serving mandatory minimum sentences without the possibility of parole. Michael, who was recently released, has gone back to life on the streets. Kenneth, his fellow inmate and mentor, was transferred to Oregon State Correctional Facility to complete his sentence. We follow their stories and those of their mindfulness teachers who are working to help them out of a system that they believe has set them up for failure.

— LEARN MORE ABOUT —

Mindfulness

Detention Centers and Prisons

Mood Disorders

Addiction

OUTREACH

"Heavily Meditated" partners with Prison Dharma Network and Oregon Youth Authority to launch our Outreach program.

We hope our film will run on national public television and cable, be screened at major film festivals, and win awards. But the most important part of our distribution strategy is making sure "Heavily Meditated" reaches the populations it can best serve. We intend to launch an aggressive grassroots distribution campaign that brings the film, along with tools to introduce a mindfulness practice, to prisons, youth correctional facilities, and youth-at-risk organizations. Fairborz Pakseresht, Director of the Oregon Youth Authority, believes strongly in the film and has committed to screening it at all youth correctional facilities in Oregon as part of an ongoing mindfulness program. Mr. Pakseresht is also the Vice President of the National Partnership for Juvenile Services and believes "Heavily Meditated" could be an inspiring educational tool for juvenile offenders and youth at risk across the country.

The Prison Mindfulness Institute will promote the film to its extensive network of supporters and make the film available to its 190 member organizations as part of a toolkit to introduce meditation in youth correctional facilities. Director Sarah Barab will travel with Fleet Maull, Founder of Prison Mindfulness Institute, and the film's protagonist Sean Bowers, to screen the film at educational institutions, youth correctional facilities, prisons, and Dharma centers throughout the U.S., offering meditation instruction and a Q&A after each screening.

Community-level audience engagement is a vital part of our distribution plan. We will use the Nation Builder platform to promote the film to grassroots audiences and encouraging the growth of mindfulness meditation throughout the country. Nation Builder not only provides the tools for individuals and nonprofits to organize, host and market their own screenings of the film, but we will also encourage these supporters to set up regular meditation meetings which will be mapped on the site. By charging a modest admission, hosts can not only recoup the costs of the license but also use any profits to help bring the film to youth correctional facilities in their areas. Supporters can donate funds through the website to send free copies of the film to youth correctional facilities. Volunteers can use the site to connect with organizations that work with at-risk and incarcerated youth in their areas. We will continue to expand and update the site which will go live within six months of the film’s completion as part of our audience building initiative.

Trailer

10.14.2015

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THE TEAM

Featured

Sarah Barab, Director, Co-Producer

“Heavily Meditated” is Sarah Barab’s directorial debut. She has studied Buddhism and psychology for over twenty years, receiving her Bachelors and Master’s degrees from Naropa, a Buddhist university in Colorado. Sarah lived in Nepal and India several years where she studied meditation, Buddhist philosophy and Tibetan language. Since 2007 she has been a student and co-instructor of mindfulness teacher and Prison Mindfulness Institute President Fleet Maull, who is featured as a central character in “Heavily Meditated”. After returning to New York she founded Naked Mind Productions, a nonprofit dedicated to producing mindfulness-inspired films. She has brought film crews to eight countries to interview many of the greatest living meditation teachers and neuroscientists in preparation for a film on the intersection between neuroscience, psychology and meditation that is at the center of the exploding new field of Contemplative Neuroscience. Sarah is a certified meditation and core energetics instructor in her native New York City where she teaches privately and in corporations.

Mevlut Akkaya, Producer

Mevlut is a Turkish Producer, DP and Director based in NYC who produced “Following Bliss”, “Reality Trap”, “Last Looks”, “The Doorman”, and “Toss Up” which won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Script, and Best Actor at the Antalya Film Festival. Mr. Akkaya was the DP for “A Jazz Story” and “Kanake”; and co-producer for the box office hit “Five Minarets in NY”, staring Danny Glover, Gina Gershon and Robert Patrick; and international festival hit and Berlinale Crystal Bear winner, “Night of Silence”. He produced and directed “When Comedy Went to School”, with Jerry Lewis, Larry King, Jackie Mason, Jerry Stiller, distributed by International Film Circuit and First Run Features. Mevlut is currently producing “Eye of the Hurricane” about Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, and in post-production for sci-fi film “Embers”, which is selected for IFP.

Chris Hilleke, Director of Photography, Associate Editor

Chris is a filmmaker located in Birmingham, AL. He writes, edits, scores and directs but cinematography is his primary profession. Some of his more notable feature-length contributions of cinematography include the thriller, “A Horrible Way to Die” by longtime collaborator Adam Wingard; a sex comedy, “Autoerotic” by Joe Swanberg and, most recently, the HBO documentary “Gideon's Army” directed by Dawn Porter which premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival to win the Best Editing Award for US Documentaries. Chris’s corporate clients have included Converse, Under Armour, John Deere, HBO and Mercedes-Benz and his work has been seen through conduits such as IFC, TLC, Food Network, HGTV, Netflix, Anchor Bay and HBO.

Michelle Le Brun, Co-Producer

Michelle is a Producer, Director based in Providence RI. Death: A Love Story, marked Ms. Le Brun’s debut as a filmmaker having directed, produced, written and photographed the film. It was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, won Best Documentary at the Santa Barbara Film Festival as well as Best Documentary at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival, and aired on national PBS and CBC Canada. An analysis of the film was featured in Sundancing (2000), by John Anderson, History in Documentaries (2005), by Alan Rosenthal (China edition), and Documentary Media (2009), by Broderick Fox. Ms. Le Brun distributes Death: A Love Story into the educational market and it is currently used in over 400 universities and colleges in the US and Canada. Ms. Le Brun travels the country screening the film in medical schools and speaking at Mindfulness and Communication: Training for Providers in Caring for the Seriously Ill with Dr. Mitchell Levy.

Michelle is also adjunct faculty in Lesley University’s Creative Arts in Learning Masters Degree Program as well as in the Communications and Film/ Media departments of the University of Rhode Island.

Trilby MacDonald, Writer, Co-Producer

Trilby is a published author and filmmaker who has worked as a Film Researcher, Director, Producer and Field Producer. Her credits include "Daughters of the Canopy" (Writer, Producer, Director); "Brothers and Others: the impact of 9/11 on Muslims and Arabs in America" (Writer, Producer); "They Killed Sister Dorothy" (Field Producer); and "Big River Man" (Field Producer).

Roy Wol, Second Camera, Associate Editor

Roy is an Argentine-Israeli-Turkish Editor, Producer and festival Jury based in NYC. David Cronenberg’s “Eastern Promises” (assistant editor); “Tom in America” (Producer) starring academy award nominees Burt Young and Sally Kirkland; Doug Karr’s feature narrative “Art Machine” (Producer); “A Wife Alone” (Producer); and Hank Devos’ “Kill Your TV” (Producer); “Arkadya” (Co-Producer); and “Forward” (Co-Producer). Roy has guest-lectured in various institutions on World Cinema and film production. He is currently producing an installation featuring painter Marc Dennis and filmmaker Liron Unreich.