Finding Joe - A Film by Patrick Takaya Solomon

Finding Joe is an exploration of famed Mythologist Joseph Campbell’s studies and their continuing impact on our culture. Through interviews with visionaries from a variety of fields interwoven with enactments of classic tales by a sweet and motley group of kids, the film navigates the stages of what Cambell dubbed The Hero’s Journey: the challenges, the fears, the dragons, the battles, and the return home as a changed person. Rooted in deeply personal accounts and timeless stories, Finding Joe shows how Campbell’s work is relevant and essential in today’s world and how it provides a narrative for how to live a fully realized life - or as Campbell would simply state, how to “follow your bliss”.

Featuring: Deepak Chopra, Mick Fleetwood, Rashida Jones, Tony Hawk, Catherine Hardwicke, Laird Hamilton, Robert Walter, Akiva Goldsman, Sir Ken Robinson, Robin Sharma, Lynne Kaufman, Alan Cohen, Brian Johnson, Joseph Marshall III, RebecaArmstrong, Chungliang Al Huang, David L. Miller, Gay Hendricks, David Loy and Norman Ollestad.

Opening:

Friday September 30, 2011 Laemmle Monica 4-plex Santa Monica, CA

Friday October 7, 2011 Plaza de Oro Theatre Santa Barbara, CA

Friday October 14, 2011 Landmark Theatre TBA San Francisco, CA

Friday October 14, 2011 Shattuck Cinemas Berkeley, CA

Friday October 14, 2011 Landmark Theatre TBA Denver, CO

Monday October 17, 2011 Rafael Film Center San Rafael, CA 

Friday October 21, 2011 Gaslamp 15 San Diego, CA

Friday October 21, 2011 Harkins Valley Art Tempe, AZ

Friday October 28, 2011 Landmark Varsity Seattle, WA

Friday October 28, 2011 Regal Fox Tower Portland, OR

More TBA

About the Filmmaker

Spotlight on: Annie Griffiths

Experience the life of a photographer on assignment for National Geographic magazine—and meet a true pioneer who figured out her own way to balance work and family. One of National Geographic’s first female staff photographers, Annie Griffiths has worked on every continent except Antarctica, while also raising two children. Perhaps the only professional photographer ever to pack her camera gear in Pampers, she found a way to stay close to her kids without putting the brakes on her career—even if it meant bringing the two along with her on assignment in places as distant as the ruins of Petra in Jordan or the Galápagos Islands.

What some might see as an obstacle, Griffiths turned into an opportunity. “In some of these cultures, I’m a bizarre character—a woman from another world, traveling without a chaperone,” she explains. “The fact that I’m a mother provides common ground. I pull out pictures of my children, and that helps get me out of the realm of being just a foreigner.”

In this lavishly illustrated photographic journey, based on her popular memoir A Camera, Two Kids, and a Camel, Griffiths will share three decades of international travel, intimate moments, and touching stories, along with the art she created along the way. She will also discuss her work with Ripple Effect Images, a team of journalists focused on raising awareness and funding to empower women and girls in emerging nations around the world.

Get up close and personal with Annie:

January 20, 2012 Washington Center for Performing Arts, Olympia, WA 

January 22, 2012  Mount Baker Theater, Bellingham, WA 

February 28, 2012 Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, Kansas City, MO 

March 13, 2012 EPCOR Center for the Performing Arts, Calgary, AB 

March 15, 2012 The Broad Stage, Santa Monica, CA 

April 22, 2012 The Byham Theater, Pittsburgh, PA 

April 25, 2012 David A. Straz, Jr. Center for Performing Arts, Tampa, FL 

Mary 27, 2012 Roy Thomson Hall, Toronto, ON 

Remembering September 11 

For those wishing to contemplate in silence or to commemorate with others, this is a short list of events/places that have already taken place or will open on 9/11. Our hearts go out to the victims’ families, to New Yorkers and to America.

9/11 Memorial will have a special ceremony for victims’ families on 9/11 and will open to the public on 9/12. Free, advance visitor passes are required through the Memorial’s online reservation system. 

MoMA PS1 chief curator Peter Eleey has organized a show that will occupy the entire 2nd floor of the museum and will be on view from September 11, 2011 - January 9, 2012. 

Smithsonian National Museum is currently displaying recovered objects from the World Trade Center, Pentagon and Shanksville, PA. On view for one week from September 3 - September 11. 

Charles B. Wang Center at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, NY will have an Origami Peace Tree Memorial. The Peace Tree will be up from September 7 - September 15 with an opening ceremony starting at 1:00 PM.

Last, here’s an insightful article from PBS Parents about talking to kids about 9/11 (and news in general). 

Celebrate National Youth Literacy Day

August 26th is National Youth Literacy Day. Whether you’re in San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, Ann Arbor, Seattle or anywhere in between, help celebrate youth literacy with 826 National  (a non-profit organization dedicated to providing free access to writing workshops, publishing projects and one-on-one after-school help to 24,000 students in 8 urban cities). 

From today until September 11, all proceeds from our Pelikano Junior Fountain Pen sales will go to 826LA.