3/04/10

Jesus in India with film maker Paul Davids

Paul Davids

Show Description:
Catherine Bradford welcomes Paul Davids, "Jesus in India"
It begins with a former Fundamentalist from Texas, ousted from his provincial church for asking too many questions.  “If God wanted you to know about that, it would have been in the Bible,” he is told, “—so stick to worrying about your own salvation.”  But that’s not good enough for Edward T. Martin, and thus begins a seeker’s quest across 4000 miles of India in search of answers about where Jesus was during the “Hidden Years” from ages 12 to 30. The New Testament is silent on those years, however in India there is an ancient tradition that young Jesus joined a caravan and took the Silk Road to the East, where He lived with both Hindus and Buddhists before returning to begin His ministry.  To what extent are these traditions based on evidence, and why does the “Pope” of Hinduism now insist that Jesus was in India?  Why does Professor Elaine Pagels of Princeton University, a world-renowned Biblical scholar, say we cannot rule this out? Scholars and religious authorities are joined in this film by the Dalai Lama and an Apostolic Nuncio of Pope John Paul II.  You will hear all sides, and you will be shocked and surprised by some of the answers offered for the Bible’s silence about JESUS IN INDIA.
JESUS IN INDIA is from the director whose latest motion picture won the Saturn Award for Best DVD of 2006 and also the international fan-based Rondo Award for Best Independent Genre Film.

http://www.pauldavids.com

Guest Bio:

Paul Davids' career in film and television took off when he got his “first break” as production coordinator of the original “TRANSFORMERS” TV show for Marvel Productions in 1985.  His name appears on about 80 episodes, and he also wrote many of them.  This popular series, based on the Hasbro toys, spawned the recent smash hit feature film, “THE TRANSFORMERS,” from Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay.  Before he began producing and directing his own films, Paul spent a couple years co-writing six STAR WARS sequel novels (with Hollace Davids) for Lucasfilm and Bantam books, including the award-winning MISSION FROM MOUNT YODA plus THE GLOVE OF DARTH VADER, THE LOST CITY OF THE JEDI, ZORBA THE HUTT’S REVENGE, QUEEN OF THE EMPIRE and PROPHETS OF THE DARK SIDE.  The books sold millions of copies and were published in many languages.

Paul Davids’ films are known for controversy, beginning with “ROSWELL” (starring Martin Sheen, Kyle MacLachlan & Dwight Yoakam), a 1994 nominee for Golden Globe as Best TV Motion Picture, which he executive produced and co-wrote as a Showtime original movie.  It dealt with issues of extraterrestrial life and the purported “truth embargo” on the subject of ET contact. 

His directorial debut was in 1997 with “TIMOTHY LEARY'S DEAD,” which he filmed with the late Harvard Professor who promoted LSD for consciousness expansion in the Psychedelic 1960s.  “TIMOTHY LEARY’S DEAD” proved to be a favorite at many major festivals (including Toronto & Venice & the NY Underground Film Festival).  That film had a theatrical release from Strand and a DVD release from Roger Corman's New Concorde. 

In 2000, Universal Studios Home Entertainment released Paul Davids' “STARRY NIGHT” to DVD, a whimsical fantasy that Davids produced (with Hollace Davids) and which Paul Davids wrote and directed.  In this film, artist Vincent van Gogh returns to life for 100 days to discover he's now an extraordinary success, but Vincent finds that he still can't get paid for his paintings – now worth billions - that were rejected in his day a century ago.  It is an ironic commentary on society’s frequent lack of appreciation for (and sometimes total disregard of) its greatest artists while they are living.  Universal also licensed the film to TV around the world. 

The director's next film was a 2004 DVD release called “THE ARTIST AND THE SHAMAN,” a very personal story dealing with his own quest for life’s deeper meaning as an artist in Sedona, Arizona, influenced by a shaman with mystic connections to those Arizona lands, held sacred by many native-Americans.  The film won awards of merit and received excellent reviews.  UFO-TV released the DVD.

This was followed in 2006 by another Paul Davids film released by Universal Studios Home Entertainment:  “THE SCI-FI BOYS.”  That film was broadcast on the Sci Fi Channel and is now being seen on TV around the world.  It won many awards, including the Saturn Award as Best DVD of 2006 (from the Academy of Science-Fiction, Fantasy and Horror) and the fan-based International Rondo Award as Best Independent Genre Film of 2006.  The DVD is widely available on the internet. 

In “THE SCI-FI BOYS,” Paul Davids features director Peter Jackson (“LORD OF THE RINGS,” “KING KONG”) who takes viewers through a history of special effects in film with a dozen notables of the world of imaginative cinema, including Ray Harryhausen, Dennis Muren, Rick Baker & Ray Bradbury, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.

JESUS IN INDIA is Paul Davids' 5th feature film as director.  He produced the film with Anil Kumar Urmil, who is from Goa, India, and who served as Executive Producer (with Felicity M. Newman) on “STARRY NIGHT.”  It features a memorable music score by Brian Thomas Lambert (who also composed music for “THE SCI-FI BOYS”)  This film is a quest to unravel the mysteries of Jesus’ Lost Years (or “Hidden Years”) from age 12 to 30, which are not documented in the Bible.  In so doing, it explores the legends, myths and actual evidence that Jesus’ Hidden Years were partially spent in India, and that Jesus was the “King of Travelers” as Muslims have always claimed.  It is loosely based on the book King of Travelers:  Jesus’ Lost Years in India by Edward T. Martin, who leads us on a 4000 mile journey to holy places of many major religions in this film.  The film is most remarkable for the participants who appear on camera, including best selling author Professor Elaine Pagels of Princeton University, the Dalai Lama, the “Pope of Hinduism” (the Shankaracharya) in his first public revelation on this topic (and he insists that Jesus was in India at the 2.500 year old Jagannath Temple in Puri), Monsignor Corrado Balducci (an Apostolic Nuncio of Pope John Paul II) and representatives of Paramahansa Yogananda's Self-Realization Fellowship.   JESUS IN INDIA is a 97 minute feature documentary, produced over the course of three years.