Tueday At Duke // "The Dhamma Brothers"

Duke's Kenan Institute for Ethics invites you to a free screening of a The Dhamma Brothers this Tuesday evening at 7pm in the Griffith Film Theater, Bryan Center. Read all about it below via the Institute's press release:

// Film & Even Description //

An overcrowded Alabama maximum-security prison is dramatically changed by the influence of an ancient meditation program. Post-film discussion led by Ron Cavanaugh (treatment director at the Alabama Dept. of Corrections), Jenny Phillips (the film’s writer and producer), and Gary Hetzel (the Donaldson Correctional Facility’s warden).

See the trailer at:www.dhammabrothers.com/

The screening and post-film discussion is free and open to the public. Free parking provided in the Bryan Center parking deck (you’ll be provided with a validated parking pass at the screening).

Film Synopsis:

(Andrew Kukura, Jenny Phillips, & Anne Marie Stein, 2008, 76 min, USA, in English, Color, 35mm)

An overcrowded maximum-security prison, the end of the line in Alabama’s prison system, is dramatically changed by the influence of an ancient meditation program. Behind high security towers and a double row of barbed wire and electrical fence dwells a host of convicts who may never again know life in the outside world. But for some of these men, a spark is ignited when theirs becomes the first maximum-security prison in North America to hold an extended Vipassana retreat, an emotionally and physically demanding program of silent meditation lasting ten days.

The Dhamma Brothers tells a dramatic tale of human potential and transformation as it closely follows and documents the stories of the prison inmates at Donaldson Correctional Facility as they enter into this arduous and intensive program.

Post-film discussion led by Ron Cavanaugh, Jenny Phillips, and Gary Hetzel. Cavanaugh is the treatment director at the Alabama Dept. of Corrections. He has been an advocate for the meditation program and he worked at the Donaldson Correctional Facility. Phillips is the film’s writer and producer. Gary Hetzel is the warden at the Donaldson Correctional Facility.

The 2010 Ethics Film Series is cosponsored by the Arts of the Moving Image Program and the Center for Documentary Studies.