A major new documentary television series in development, Swans at the Lake—The American Story of Buddhism, has received fiscal sponsorship from Buddhist Film Foundation (BFF) and has recently been awarded a research grant from Hartley Film Foundation. The four part series is being executive produced by Gaetano Kazuo Maida, and is inspired in part by the classic book How the Swans Came to the Lake, by the late Rick Fields.
The series is in the very preliminary development phase and the objective is for it to be a PBS presentation. “There have been numerous series on Christianity, Judaism, Islam, even Mormons, but besides David Grubin’s biographic study The Buddha, there’s been nothing on national television about the very diverse and extensive Buddhist phenomena here,” says Mr. Maida. “Rick Fields and I had pitched something like this to PBS twenty years ago but there apparently was no appetite or audience for it then. Now Buddhism is identified in fourteen states (including the most populous, California) as the number two most cited religious affinity, second only to Christianity in total. There are, for instance, more Buddhists than Episcopalians or Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
Hartley Film Foundation awarded the film one of its development grants in its latest round. Citing the film’s “panoramic” approach, the grant award identifies the project as the “first television documentary to comprehensively explore the American encounter with Buddhism.” Additional grants from the Tan Teo Charitable Foundation and the R.A. Hunt Foundation have helped accelerate the project.
“We are working to raise sufficient funding to start filming some interviews soon with several of the key older figures in the story here,” Mr. Maida says. “We lost our friend Peter Matthiessen last year and though it’s hard to admit, we’re all getting on,” Mr. Maida adds. The series is designed to journey with contemporary figures through the landscapes of Buddhist traditions here in the U.S., referencing the 150 year history here in passing while focusing on current issues, events, people and institutions. A revised and updated edition of the Rick Fields book is being prepared for publication by Skidmore College professor and author Benjamin Bogin, Mr. Field’s nephew, with publication to coincide with the broadcast.
Mr. Maida is known for his portrait of Vietnamese Zen teacher and bestselling author Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step, narrated by Ben Kingsley, which introduced many Americans to the Nobel Peace Prize-nominated activist for the first time. He directed and/or produced a number of other documentaries including the award-winning film about homelessness and housing in New York, Rock Soup, directed by Lech Kowalski. He also served as associate producer of Neten Chokling’s 2007 dramatic feature Milarepa. He was one of the founding directors of the Buddhist quarterly Tricycle, and since 2000, he has served as executive director of Buddhist Film Foundation. A full production team is being assembled for Swans at the Lake.
As part of its commitment to Buddhist cinema, BFF maintains an active fiscal sponsorship program, with over a dozen films currently in production. Other titles include the award-winning Buddha’s Lost Children, directed by Mark Verkerk, the critically acclaimed My Reincarnation, by Jennifer Fox (American Love Story) and the upcoming One Mind, by Edward Burger (Amongst White Clouds) and The Sweet Requiem by Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam (Dreaming Lhasa). BFF also serves as fiscal sponsor to the Dharamshala International Film Festival and the Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival.
