Toronto Premiere Gala Screening of Belili Productions'

 Signs Out Of Time

documentary celebrating the life, work, and impact
of Lithuanian American archaeologist

Marija Gimbutas

plus Commentaries / Q&A with the filmmakers

Donna Read & Starhawk

Welcoming Drummers, Healing Divas’ song
a mini-fest of tabling by related associations, activists, artists
in the Lobbies before & after the Auditorium event

Saturday 20 November 2004

7:00pm 
Lobby mini-fest,  Auditorium Seat Selecting,  &
Auditorium Co-Creating Beautification
8:00pm 
Screening, Commentaries, Q&A
Reception & mini-fest follows

  
 

JJR MacLeod Auditorium

( Medical Sciences Building, 1 Kings College Circle, University of Toronto )
 ( short walk from Queen's Park Subway Station NW exit; on campus parking flat $5; wheelchair accessible )

Limited seating, advance purchase recommended.
Buying your ticket early helps support this event, and assures you a seat without your having to wait in a cash-only lineup at the door.

Gala Screening is a FUNDRAISER for Belili Productions(for costs in creating Signs Out Of Time, the touring of Public Screenings, and productions in development).

FUNDRAISER for Belili Productions:

$10 - 60   -  suggested minimum $20 / seat
                    general admission seat selection upon arrival (Auditorium opens 7pm)

$61 - 160 -  reserved seating within Centre Spiral, plus DVD/VHS of "Signs Out Of Time"

Huge gratitude for everyone's interest and participation
(all prices include applicable taxes).
                                           
If you prefer a worktrade as your form of payment
contact <worktrade.promoteitbe@istar.ca> & we will attempt arrangements.

If you would like to volunteer to assist in making this as wondrous a night as possible
contact <volunteer.promoteitbe@istar.ca> suggesting what you would like to offer.

Any Media inquiries contact <media.promoteitbe@istar.ca>

 Payment Options for Seats for Fundraising Gala Screening:

by PayPal
(from your bank account, VISA, or MasterCard)
 
[please add $4 service charge to your total amount]

into "ProMote It Be" account
at www.PayPal.com
Go to "SEND MONEY" page
"Recipient's Email"  =  ProMoteItBe@istar.ca
"Type":  =  Service
"Shipping Address" gives us your snail-mailing address, always handy

Please note: if purchasing multiple items at the same time [ie:  seat(s) for Screening + Workshop(s)] via PayPal 
- only one $4 service charge is needed per single order (covers PayPal's charges per transaction)

PayPal payments must be RECEIVED NO LATER than 19 November

or

Mail cheque made out to "ProMote It Be" to:
in either case,
include a note saying "Signs Out Of Time", number of seats desired,
AND include your email address, & telephone number.

Confirmation of available seating by email, (or telephone, if no e-address).
That email (or phone message) confirmation, plus your name on our list will be your ticket.

Money returned if no seats remaining at receipt of your payment.

ProMote It Be has no capability to process credit cards over the telephone, nor in person. 

Cash-only at the door, subject to availability.

Events produced by ProMote It Be

Details subject to change; check back here.  Once you have registered you will be notified directly of any changes.

Donna Read directed the popular trio of films known as the Women's Spirituality Series: 
"Goddess Remembered", "The Burning Times", and "Full Circle" (NFB Canada), on which Starhawk was a consultant and contributor.  Donna is active in the Reclaiming Community and its activist initiatives.

Starhawk is well known as an articulate pioneer in the revival of earth-based spirituality and Goddess religion.  Besides her inspiring, much-read books, she is a cofounder of Reclaiming, an activist branch of modern Paganism.  Through her participation in the global uprising in opposition to the Empire-building of the current Republican Administration of the U.S.A., the abuses of the occupied territoritories of Palestine, and the worldwide corporate bullying agenda of the WTO, World Bank, IMF, FTAA, G8, SOA, and especially her brilliant reports from within the midst of these actions, Starhawk has emerged as one of the key voices describing / interpreting "the movement" today.
 
Starhawk and Donna Read recently formed their own film company, Belili Productions.
Their first release is Signs Out of Time (2004) celebrating archaeologist Marija Gimbutas, the scholar whose discoveries sparked the Goddess movement.  Starhawk and Donna are at work on their next films: Welcome To Possible (working title) a documentary on permaculture as a practical solution for the present & a vision for a sustainable future; Growing Resistance about activism based on the principles of permaculture; Women and Peace (working title) a feature about non-violent movements and women's peace activism in Israel and the occupied territories of Palestine; Moments Of Grace an experimental film based on the work of Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme.

Actress Olympia Dukakis, a long-time friend of Marija, is the film's narrator.


Blessed Be.  So Mote It Be.  ProMote It Be.




"Signs Out Of Time"

About Marija Gimbutas and the film project

What allows a person to see what nobody else can see ? What forces in a life create a woman who can speak her truth with passion and hold her own against ridicule and criticism ?

When Marija Gimbutas died in 1994 she was already considered by many to be one of the most influential and controversial archaeologists of this century. At a time when most scholars of ancient history confined themselves to recording and describing data, she dared to look for meaning. Her interpretations engagefundamental issues: Is war inevitable ? Have men always dominated women ? What are the true roots of Western culture ?"

I do not believe, as many archaeologists of this generation seem to, that we shall never know the meaning of
prehistoric art and religion."
-- Marija Gimbutas


"Agricultural people's beliefs concerning sterility and fertility, the fragility of life and the constant threat of destruction, and the periodic need to renew the generative processes of nature are among the most enduring. They live on in the present... The Goddess-centered religion existed for a very long time... leaving an indelible imprint on the Western psyche."
--Marija Gimbutas

Gimbutas' findings reveal an ancient widespread culture which flourished throughout Europe between 6500 and 3500 BCE, in the era historians call the Neolithic. This civilization was radically different from images of kings, warriors, and conquering gods that previously dominated our view of the past.

Her excavations and interpretations show, at the dawn of civilization, a society stretching across Europe from the Danube to the North Sea in which women had high status and power along with men.  Egalitarian and peaceful, "Old Europe" existed for thousands of years without war.

Born in Lithuania, Gimbutas grew up steeped in that country's rich folk tradition of stories, songs and mythology. Her education, pursued in Lithuania and as a refugee in war-torn Europe, included a broad range of languages, linguistics and archaeology. In the United States, she originally concentrated on the Bronze Age of Eastern Europe and was widely acknowledged as an expert in this area. When she turned to the Neolothic era, Gimbutas brought unique interdisciplinary skills to her reconstruction of culture and religion. Not content to simply catalogue data, she insisted that archaeology must tackle questions of meaning and interpretation.



Gimbutas' descriptions of the life affirming culture of Old Europe have sparked enormous controversy. Her theories have been widely acclaimed by feminists, by women and men in the growing earth-based spirituality movement, by artists, dancers, novelists, and by many historians and archaeologists. But they have also been attacked by other scholars, her methods criticized, and her interpretations denied. The debate is of far more than mere historical interest, for Gimbutas' work cuts to the heart of basic questions about human nature and possibilities:

Are human beings innately aggressive and dominating, doomed to live in violence and destroy each other and the earth ?  Or are we capable of creating cultures based on co-operation and peace ?

"Through an understanding of what the Goddess was,
we can better understand nature and we can build our
ideologies so it will be easier for us to live."
-- Marija Gimbutas

If her theories are correct, then peace, reverence for the earth and the honoring of life are not only human capabilities, they are the very underpinnings of European civilization itself.

More about Signs Out Of Time and Dr. Marija Gimbutas at  Belili Productions
 www.Belili.org/  (opens in a new window)

Included in the film is footage of an excellent, in-depth interview with Marija, thanks to the foresight of Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and the Blade, who arranged and conducted the interview, and to the generosity of filmmaker Vivien Hillgrove.

Thanks to the many scholars who appear in Signs Out Of Time.

Posted at Belili.org/ are letters of support from members of our Friends of Marija Foundation, including Vicki Noble,
author of The Motherpeace Tarot; actress Olympia Dukakis; Miriam Robbins Dexter, Ph.D.; Theodore Roszak, Professor of History, California State University, Hayward; and Vivienne Verdon-Roe, Winner of an Academy Award for "Women For America, For the World."
 
Marija Gimbutas in Slovakia, 1991.  (Photo by Joan Marler)

Donna Read
Producer ~ Director ~ Editor
Filmography

1993-Present     Great Atlantic and Pacific Film Co. (Canada),  Belili Productions (U.S.A.)

*    Temagami/52min./DV/Beta SP. Doc. This program has been shown on TV Ontario and Vision TV, presented at             conferences and schools around the U.S. and Canada.
*    Signs out of Time/58min./16mmfilm/Doc/Biography. Biography of Marija Gimbutas    
*    Earth Activist Training Videos - Series                                            
*    Kureleck- a one hour film on the Canadian painter William Kurelek.
*    Growing Resistance, the Green Bloc/Doc/In Production.
*    Moments of Grace, experimental based on the writings of Thomas Berry/ Research and Development.
*    Palestine Dispatch, a look at the women's peace movement in Israel and the Palestinian Territories/ editing

1981-1990      National Film Board of Canada

*    It's Just Better    /52min. /16mm. Drama
*    The Way It Is    /27min./16mm. Doc. Editor
*    Too Dirty For A Woman     /27min./16mm. Doc. Editor/Associate Director
*    Behind The Veil: Nuns    /120 min/16mm. Doc. Best Editing award,
*    Toronto International Film Festival 1982.
*    Adam's World    /20min./16mm Experimental.  Director/Editor chosen to open the 1991 U.N. Global Conference on         the Environmental Impact of PCB's.            
*    Goddess Remembered    / 58 min Part One of Women and Spirituality
*    The Burning Times    /58 min.       Part Two of Women and Spirituality
*    Full Circle    /58 min./ director/writer and editor on this series.

The Women and Spirituality Trilogy has won eight awards including the Cable Ace award for best long documentary, voted most popular film at the Toronto Festival of Festivals, Vancouver Film Festival, and a Blue Ribbon award from the Chicago Film Festival.

*    Stolen Moments    /35mm/120min./  I was the editor and associate director filling in for an absentee director.  Shown         theatrically across the U.S. and Canada.  Limited audience due to sexual subject matter. 
*    Creatures of the Sun    /35mm/ 15min.  Editor, and associate director/producer for the National Film Board.
*    Anatomy of Desire    /beta SP/58min.  Editor, Associate Director/Producer.  Juno award for best editing.
*    Spudwrench    /35mm. 55min. Editor.

1973-1975              Great Atlantic and Pacific Film Co.

*    Mask and Drum    57min. 35mm  Docu/Drama an unusual look at Inuit art.  This film has shown in museums,                 theatres and galleries all across the United States, Canada and Europe and has garnered a number of awards,                     including first prize at the London International Film Festival, (l975); with Steuben Glass in New York.
*    Kripalu    /57min. 16mm  documentary on the 'guru' phenomena of the 70's.  This film has been widely shown in the          U.S. on public television and the educational market.
*    Wintersong    /10min./35mm. Experimental. Editor.

1969-1972            National Film Board of Canada

*    Act of the Heart    /120min/35mm  Feature Film.  Assistant editor/ Production Office Manager.  Editor/Associate             Producer.  November has won many awards for cinematography and editing.
*    Perception    /20min. 35mm  Experimental.  Editor/Co-producer.
*    TalentContest    /45min.16mm  Docu/Drama.  Editor and Co-Producer.    
*    Our Dear Sisters    /15min.16mm  Experimental.  Editor.
*    Just A Minute    /60min.  Editor.
*    Supervising Editor and Producer for Studio D.

Starhawk (extensive Bio & Bibliography bottom of page "Earth Path")