A documentary film by Phie Ambo
Free the Mind
Produced by Danish Documentary Production
with the support from the Danish Film Institute, DR Broadcast Corporation, Nordisk Film & TV Fond
Bijou Art Cinema
492 East 13th Avenue
Eugene, Oregon
Thursday, Jan. 2, 2014, 6 PM
Admission: $5-$7
WATCH – official trailer
Can You Rewire The Brain Just By Taking A Breath?
More American soldiers commit suicide after they return from war, than are being killed in the war. Most of the war veterans suffer from PTSD. Steve is one of the proud American veterans who just returned from Afghanistan. He was an interrogator and very good at his job. Now, back home, he suffers from sleepless nights and bad conscience because of all the terrible things he did during the war. He has a lot of anger and fear for the future and is struggling to be a good father for his two-year-old twins. Brain scientist Professor Richard Davidson sets up his mind to conduct an unusual experiment: He will teach American war veterans and children meditation and yoga. Can veterans through meditation and yoga ease their pain and nervous system, find happiness and be more peaceful and get back to a life more like the one they had before the war? By studying Buddhist monks Richard Davidson has found that it is possible to rewire your brain through meditation. Some of the effects are that you become more altruistic, compassionate and happy. But Richard Davidson also wants to study how early in life you can start, using the same methods of meditation and yoga in an experiment with children with ADHD. Davidson sets up his experiment and chooses the veterans for the experiment. We are following Steve, the ex-interrogator, and Rich who was a very successful leader for battalions in Iraq and Afghanistan. He feels responsible for not being able to save his friends that were killed during the war. Rich becomes more and more closed up and can’t tell his wife about his memories. Through the film, we experience what meditation does to human beings and we investigate, if we, by using other methods than taking medicine to ease our pain, can get less stressful, and happy.