Recent Films
Films for Non-Profit, TV & Commercial Clients
The Mustang School sits on a steep hillside above the village of Lubrak, a 1,000 year old Bonpo settlement in Lower Mustang, Nepal. The school serves several important purposes in the region. First, it provides additional education to the students who board here, offering lodging, meals and more study time than offered in the nearby state run school. Second, and perhaps as equally important, the Mustang School keeps mountain children in the mountains near where their families live. This protects Himalayan culture by keeping children living in their culture, instead of at boarding schools far away in India where they tend to lose their culture, their language and their connection to the mountain lands. This project needs assistance – please contact us for more details.
Tsoknyi Gechak Ling is an innovative project in Nepal, providing women and girls with both secular and Buddhist education. By realizing the vision of the lineage of the Tsoknyi Rinpoche, these women will in time receive the highest level of Buddhist education and be able to teach at the highest levels, an opportunity previously only available to men. This is the only project like this in the world, and we are honored to help them promote their work. www.TsoknyiNepalNuns.org
The Tsoknyi Humanitarian Foundation (THF) approached Grit & Thistle Film to create a film to capture the spirit of their great work in Nepal. Working with the esteemed Tsoknyi Rinpoche III, THF helps provide women and girls with the highest level of Buddhist education ever offered. In time, these women will be some of the most qualified practitioners and teachers in the world. We completed the film in time to kick off the last stage of the THF capital campaign, just prior to the April 2015 earthquake. All the nuns in this film survived the earthquake, as did their center of study in Kathmandu. However, the neighborhood of Chobar immediately around the nunnery lost around 75% of their structures. The nuns started helping their neighbors immediately by providing food, water and muscle power. We look forward to a long relationship with the Rinpoche, THF and the incredible Tsoknyi Nepal Nuns. www.TsoknyiNepalNuns.org
The non-profit organization Peruvian Hearts needed a new promotional film to show during their live presentations to potential funders, a piece to convey the spirit and feel of their work with girls education in the Peruvian Andes. Working with the girls in rural villages and the Incan capital Cusco, Grit and Thistle Film created this marketing film to meet the goals of this NGO. Peruvian Hearts creates educational opportunities for girls and young women in the Andes of South America, including working with girls who have been orphaned or abandoned. We also created additional video library assets for Peruvian Hearts to use in their future media work. Peruvian Hearts was started by CNN Hero Ana Dodson and her family. www.PeruvianHearts.org
When the International Mountain Bike Association (IMBA) needed to get the word out about a new Central Colorado trails and wilderness proposal that would affect their mountain bike members, they asked Grit and Thistle Film to create a film to distribute their message through online and live sources. We worked closely with IMBA and affiliated nonprofit organizations to make a fun and informative video that also drew a distinction between a prior proposal and their current trail and wilderness access work. www.IMBA.com
The Rider and the Wolf is a full-length documentary about the life and mysterious disappearance of Mountain Bike Hall of Fame cyclist Mike Rust. He helped form the sport of mountain biking in the USA with the stoke and technical innovations he put into action in the mountain towns of Crested Butte and Salida. He went missing without a trace in 2009 in remote part of Colorado. This award-winning film helped solve the mystery of what happened to Mike the Bike.