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Season 1 of Vibrations travels to Southeast Asia to meet cutting edge composers, innovative indie bands, eclectic underground performers and dedicated traditional musicians. The effects of globalization are transforming cultures and the impact on local music scenes is pronounced. The first three episodes of Vibrations explore the music scenes in Hanoi, Vietnam and Bali, Indonesia.
Series Synopsis
Episode Synopses
Trailers
Vibrations Season 1
Artist Statement
Benjamin Steger
At the core of my cinematic practice is the belief that art is medicine, essential for both individual and societal well-being. I strive to create films that act as a salve for the soul, bask the audience in the healing glow of love, provide catharsis, allow rumination on our shared humanity, and connect us to one another within a global community. I utilize the documentary form to construct dramatic and philosophical narratives around the lives of everyday people. My films cast a humanistic perspective on themes that probe interpersonal relationships, love, loss, death, and art as resistance, spiritual practice, and remedy.
My approach to documentary is akin to poetry and music, rejoicing in the moment, celebrating the impermanence of life, and finding peace through stillness and nature. My documentary quests are driven by my curiosity to know myself and the world better through the privilege of connecting to others. I strive to capture profound universal experiences, create empathy through the participants inhabiting my films, and highlight the complex and often contradictory nature of truth, allowing audiences to reflect on their own life experiences and make personal interpretations and connections to the themes weaved throughout my films.
Vibrations evolved out of my lifelong love of music and the opportunity and privilege to live abroad. As I grew up, music was a refuge, an inspiration, and a pathway to explore and discover myself. It offered communities where I could be “different,” or what I would later recognize as simply “the ability to be my authentic self and be accepted.” Music was the first place where I heard not only someone’s voice, but their soul resounding, and I felt these reverberations deep inside my core, stirring my own soul to rise and resound. When my partner took a job in Southeast Asia, the opportunity presented itself for me to search out and discover similar voices in a part of the world I had never been before. Vibrations is the culmination of this journey. Presented within it is a chorus of souls resounding.
Filmmaker
Benjamin Steger
Director
Executive Producer
Filmmaker Benjamin Steger has been making experimental, documentary, and narrative fiction films since the 1990s. His documentary work features lyrical, empathetic character studies that explore the core of the human experience. His feature length documentary, Stage Four: A Love Story (2015), was awarded “Best International Feature Length Documentary” at the 2016 DOCFeed Documentary Festival in the Netherlands and “Best Feature Length Documentary” at the 69th Annual University Film and Video Association International Conference.
Benjamin also directed Left Field (2009), a feature length documentary about an oddball community of artists, musicians and misfits that coalesce around the grade school game of kickball, which screened at the Austin Film Festival, Gene Siskel Film Center, Dallas Videofest, DocuFest Atlanta, Kansas International Film Festival and others.
Great Bend (2006), a short narrative fiction written and directed by Benjamin, screened at the Sedona International Film Festival, Long Island Film Festival, and others. Noted film critic Robert Butler selected it as a "Critic's Pick" for the 2006 Kansas City Filmmaker's Jubilee in the Kansas City Star.
Filmmaker
Lisa Thrasher
Producer
Producer Lisa Thrasher is an entertainment lawyer and Producer with 20 years of experience in Hollywood. Lisa has produced fiction films with some of Hollywood’s top female film and TV creators including Jamie Babbit, Angela Robinson, Andrea Sperling, Colette Burson, Nefertite Nguvu, and Tina Mabry. Lisa’s films have achieved critical and commercial success receiving domestic and international, commercial distribution; screening at over 900 film festivals; winning over 80 awards; and, a Student “Academy Award” Nomination. For over a decade, Lisa co-headed POWER UP Films, a Los Angeles film production company for women and the LGBTQ community.
As President of Film Production & Distribution,
Lisa oversaw development, production and distribution of all filmed entertainment, including: the two romantic comedy features “Girltrash: All Night Long” and the award-winning “Itty Bitty Titty Committee” (Berlinale “Teddy Award” Nominee, South by Southwest “Best Narrative Feature Jury Award); “Get to Know Us First” PSA (NBC, ABC, CBS); “Little Black Boot,” (Sundance); “Billy’s Dad is a Fudge-Packer” (Sundance); “Stuck” (Sundance “Honorable Mention”); and “DEBS” (Sundance, Berlinale “Best Short”).
As a lawyer for 20th Century Fox, Lisa conducted International anti-piracy litigation, domestic trademark prosecution, and international anti-piracy affairs with foreign Heads of State to protect the studio’s films. Lisa holds a JD from Southwestern University School of Law and BFA in Photography & Film from Virginia Commonwealth University. In 2010, Go Magazine named Lisa as one of the “Women We Love.”
Events
We are entering Vibrations into select film festivals this year. Benjamin Steger will be in attendance at some of these dates discussing individual episodes and the Vibrations project as a whole.
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