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More about Stroud Film Festival Screening: Radical Love

Satish Kumar was born in India and at the age of 9 decided to become a Jain monk. At 18, he left the monastic order to follow Gandhi's ideas of a more inclusive spirituality that fights against injustices and exploitation. He became an activist for the Land Gift movement, persuading landlords to distribute land to the poorest of the poor.

At the height of the Cold War, he began a long walk for peace. Along with a colleague, he walked 13,000 km on foot and without money—over more than two years, from Gandhi's tomb in New Delhi to Kennedy's tomb in Washington—as a way to alert the world to the risks and inconsistencies of nuclear armament.

Director's Statement - Julio Hey
"The place where spirituality and action meet has been a continuous pursuit in my journey as a storyteller, and the contact with Satish Kumar somehow amplified this possibility. The profound impact that Satish has had on my own journey has ignited in me the possibility for becoming an activist of Love. I understood that this project carries
a fine line between art, activism, and devotion, and particularly, the intersection of these three areas is what drives me to continue making projects. The influence of ancient Indian wisdom and the integration of this wisdom with life in the West is a central theme of the film and my life. Satish Kumar, in his ability to translate this wisdom into the modern context, offers a path that I have exercised and experienced since my first trip to India as a teenager. The experiences I had in connection with the wisdom of the ancient peoples of India have made me delve deeper into the possibility of relating to life in a more profound and vast way. This ancient oriental wisdom that I refer to comes from the inspiration of nature. The wisdom of how to deal with life, death, mind,
interdependence, and other concepts that I consider fundamental for a well-lived life is not in books or universities. It is in the people of the simplest villages. In those who have contact with the land. In the grandmothers and grandfathers. In Satish's mother, present from the beginning to the end of the film, representing the embodiment of this
intuitive and playful wisdom. I think that this is the kind of rescue we need to make today. To look at the simple instead of the elaborate, the ancestral instead of the progress, the peace instead of the violence.

I present myself here before a work that I consider the film of my life. A journey of self-knowledge, transformation, and action. I see this project as a tribute to the capacity of the human heart."