A still from "Walking With Alfred Hassler, Thich Nhat Hanh and Sister Chan Khong"
We recently shared a video trailer for “Walking With Alfred Hassler, Thich Nhat Hanh and Sister Chan Khong,” of the new Peace is the Way film series. Here, filmmaker Jennifer Adams tells of how the series began to come together, and how you contribute to its completion.
The story of the making of this film series begins at DePaul University in 1999 where Gregory Kennedy-Salemi, one of the founding project members, sat reading a copy of Peace is the Way: Writings on Nonviolence from the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a collection of essays and musings from some of the world’s most preeminent leaders of the peace movement, including Alfred Hassler and Thich Nhat Hanh. The book sparked something in Greg that would create in him a lifelong passion for non-violent activism and eventually be realized in our film series Peace is the Way: A Century of Nonviolent Action.
Of course, such a project is rarely attributable to just one person or one single idea. Indeed this story is laced with an incredible array of kind, devoted, and enlightened individuals, without all of whom this story and this film might never have happened. Fast-forward several years to the meeting of Greg and one such individual, Laura Hassler, the daughter of Alfred Hassler. Laura and Greg developed a strong friendship, and through the sharing of many hours, stories and photos Laura brought to life the memory of her father, described by Thich Nhat Hanh as “Thich Alfred Hassler,” who had died before any of our team had the privilege of meeting him.
Though Greg had long since been introduced to the work and writings of Thich Nhat Hanh (affectionately known as “Thay”) through his charismatic mother, it was Laura who provided the connection between her father and this young monk who kept appearing in photos beside him.
During these meetings Gregory also discovered that Laura had lived with and worked with Thay and Sister Chan Khong in Paris during the Vietnam war. Laura shared many stories of living with them in a cramped one room apartment, with Thay writing and composing poetry and Sister Chan Khong working, often until the early morning hours, producing Buddhist Peace Delegation posters on an old mimeograph machine in their tiny bathroom.
It was also Laura who first showed Greg a comic book that her father had helped to create, depicting the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Montgomery Bus Boycott – a comic book that would later be translated into Arabic and inspire hundreds of young Egyptian students to take part in a non-violent protest that would eventually lead to the rise of democracy in Northern Africa.
With these multiple pieces of inspiration swimming in his head, Greg and his creative sidekick Stuart set out on a campaign to somehow contact Thay in the hopes that he would support their effort to spread the word of peace and the story of his good friend, Alfred. Facebook friends were added, and YouTube videos — including one in which Laura filmed a personal appeal to Thay to contact Stu and Greg –- were made. And many, many hours were spent in pursuit of the always-on-the-move Thay.
One wonderful day, Greg and Stuart received an email from a member of Thay’s team, Sister Peace: “Thay will meet with you. Come now.” With a big sigh of relief and prayer of thanks to the Universe, Greg, Stuart and Katharina boarded a plane.
From this meeting with Thay and Sister Chan Khong came the inspiration that would re-shape the pieces into a project that would combine the stories of two generations into one voice for peace. Meeting Thay and Sister Chan Khong strengthened the ideas we knew to be powerful and necessary but also made us rethink the approach and scope in terms of audience and creation. We found that Thay loved the idea of a comic as a way to reach a diverse audience and had even been thinking of creating one of his own! In short, we began to see this film as an ever-growing and changing child and, as they say, it takes a village to raise a child.
Soon after our first meeting with Thay and Sister Chan Khong and the wonderful monks and nuns, that village began to take form. Attracted by the film’s promise, the power of Thay, Sister Chan Khong and Alfred’s stories and the devotion of the small film team to this ambitious project, more and more people began to join the team; talented, dedicated individuals who continue, to this day, to generously give their time and talents, asking nothing in return except to be a part of something that they know is bigger than themselves. And so launched a project that we hope will inspire each of us to be better every day and to work together in harmony to create a better world.
With the support of the internet community we can use film and media to creatively and actively engage others, and to hopefully plant seeds of compassion in the hearts of some. All we need is 4,000 people around the world to donate $10 each to make this project a reality. It’s a lofty goal, but with your help and donations, one we know we can reach.
