Across The King’s River is an upcoming documentary film about a man embarking on a journey from East Oakland to Nigeria, on a deeply personal quest for knowledge and healing.
The film –a story of wisdom, healing and medicine through the light of ancient African traditional healers– is founded on the creator of the film, James Weeks’ personal voyage taken with his daughter Tulani. And woven into this compelling and critically important story is Weeks’ pursuit on a similar journey taken with his oldest son Malcolm, with aspirations of getting guidance from African traditional healers to save him from a destructive life led in East Oakland.
The producer, James Weeks, is a native of St. Croix, Virgin Islands, currently living in Oakland, Ca. He’s an initiated Ifa priest and diviner, an award-winning photographer and writer who has been published in Parenting, the S.F. Weekly, The Virgin Islands Daily News, The St. Croix Avis, and Reggae Beat.
Across The King’s River Trailer from james Weeks on Vimeo.
Moreover, directed by Emmy Award-winner Stanley Nelson and scored by Grammy Award-nominated musician Omar Sosa, the film is set to take its viewers on an explorative and visually remarkable journey across West Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States. It will include a rare glimpse into the lives of an elite team of healers and diviners from two cultures: the Yorubas of Southwest Nigeria and the Lebu people of Senegal. Also featured are interviews with renown healers and scholars, including Malidoma Some, Dagara elder and author of Water and The Spirit; Dr. Marta Moreno Vega, president and founder of the Caribbean Cultural Center; and Ron Eglash, Ph.D, a widely respected scholar in the field of ethno-mathematics. An enduring glimpse into a culture of traditional healing, its objective, by sharing the narrative of discovery is to “not only inspire but force us to question our version of reality, while embracing the unseen and the unknown.”
Initiated by Weeks’ personal spiritual seeking, profoundly, the story idea has germinated into a historical documentation, with the aim of introducing the wisdom behind the story of traditional healers to an even wider audience with an ambition to help preserve the voices and knowledge of the elders –some of the practitioners of African traditional religions– before they are lost forever. Additionally, the film will also reveal the provocative story of how the roots of computer technology can be traced back to the binary code used in African divination systems.
A dream and a mission of the creator, more than documentation, the objective of the story behind the film project, according to Weeks, is “to inspire people to follow through and live in harmony with their vision, with the idea that the vision is the spiritual guide to a greater life purpose.”
The creators of the film have launched their Kickstarter Campaign; they are seeking funding to complete this powerful project. More information on how to support the project can be found here.