02/05/2019
Excerpt from "Hare Krishna! The Film" by Vishakha Devi Dasi in the latest BTG Edition (November/December 2018)
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Veteran ISKCON filmmakers fulfill their desire to introduce Srila Prabhupada to audiences around the world.
I was in Houston, Texas, for the premiere screening of the Hare Krishna! film, and during the question-and-answer session after the screening, an elderly woman in the front row raised her hand. I called on her.
"For many years now," she said, "I've had a dream I wanted to fulfill, but I kept telling myself that I was too old, that such dreams were meant for people half my age or less. But after seeing your film and what Srila Prabhupada did at such an advanced age, now I realize that I'm not too old. That I can also try to fulfill my dream and, with God's mercy, maybe I will have a tiny bit of the success that Prabhupada had."
--The Backstory
In March of 1974 my husband, Yadubara Dasa, said to Srila Prabhupada, "We would like to make a film about your life."
Yadubara and I had just released the first documentary film on the Hare Krishna movement, The Hare Krishna People. We'd premiered that film in Mayapur, West Bengal, during Gaura Purnima, the full-moon festival in honor of the anniversary of the appearance of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and devotees from around the world were enthusiastic to screen the film in their temples and in other places when they traveled to spread Krishna consciousness.
Thinking of our next project, Yadubara had approached Srila Prabhupada.
Prabhupada considered the question and said, "What is the need?"
"Since devotees are now chanting the maha-mantra on the streets of major cities everywhere," Yadubara replied, "many people throughout the world have heard of Hare Krishna. But very few people have heard of you, the person who founded the Hare Krishna movement in the West. We feel it's important for people to know the person behind the movement."
Again Prabhupada considered. Then with a casual left-to-right movement of his head, he said, "Yes, then it is all right."
Yadubara and I had made The Hare Krishna People film under the banner of ISKCON Cinema, an entity established to produce films on the Hare Krishna movement. As the ISKCON Cinema team, Yadubara and I went on to make other films: The Spiritual Frontier, Brilliant as the Sun, A Spark of Life, The Golden Avatar, Vrindavan: Land of Krishna, The World of Hare Krishna, and Your Ever Well-Wisher. We also produced an eleven-part chronological DVD series that contained all the known footage of Srila Prabhupada along with commentary by his followers and acquaintances.
Then in 2013, Hari Sauri Dasa, who was organizing the museum exhibitions in the upcoming Temple of the Vedic Planetarium (TOVP) in Mayapur, suggested that we make a documentary on the life of Srila Prabhupada for screening in the large, modern TOVP theatre.
Initially Yadubara and I resisted the idea. Your Ever Well-Wisher, released in 1983, was a 55-minute documentary on Srila Prabhupada's life and had been well received by devotees. Why not use that? But in rewatching that film, we realized why we should not use it: The film techniques (a narrator and a straight linear story with no flashbacks) as well as the technical quality of the film were outdated. And that film was oriented for a devotee audience; we needed a ninety-minute film oriented for the public. (Ninety minutes is the standard length for publicly screened documentaries.)
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I was in Houston, Texas, for the premiere screening of the Hare Krishna! film, and during the question-and-answer session after the screening, an elderly woman in the front row raised her hand. I called on her.
The magazine of the Hare Krishna movement's OFFICIAL page.
