Filmmaker Khashayar Darvich presents film

On Monday January 26^th, Khashayar Darvich presented his film Dalai Lama Renaissance to students and faculty in the Dicke Forum. Ellen Wilson, who knew the director as a child in southern Ohio, introduced Darvich. The director gave a short introduction to the film, which chronicled a meeting that took place in Dharamsala, India between a group of Western thinkers and the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists. While the purpose of the conference was to come up with innovative ideas for changing the world, the film is more of an exploration of the clash of egos that developed among the participants and between the participants and organizers of the conference. In the end, the one proposal was to call for a boycott of all Chinese products until Tibet gains its freedom from China. The Dalai Lama, however, turned down this suggestion because he thought that it would hurt the Chinese people, rather than their government. Darvich answered questions after the film and told the audience that his crew of thirty went into the project with a great deal of excitement that they would be filming a world changing story, but after a few days realized that the real story was the clash of egos. He also answered questions about the economics of documentary making, explaining that the real money for such projects is made in dvd sales. Without prompting he described the opportunity he had to direct Harrison Ford, who did the narration.