Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee (born 1979 in London, England) is an Emmy and Peabody award nominated filmmaker, a composer, and a Naqshbandi Sufi teacher. Emmanuel is the authorized successor of his father Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, a Sufi mystic and lineage successor in the Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya Sufi Order.
Vaughan-Lee was trained from the age of 15 by his father in the Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya Sufi Order. He attended Berklee College of Music in Boston to pursue musical studies in acoustic bass, improvisation and composition. [1] After graduating from Berklee in 2001, Vaughan-Lee performed and recorded with numerous jazz artists and released two albums under his own name – Previous Misconceptions (2001 – Emanjazz) and Borrowed Time (2005 – Fresh Sound New Talent). [2]
As a filmmaker he has directed and produced numerous award winning films and virtual reality experiences including: The Nightingale's Song, Aloha Aina, The Last Ice Age, Taste of the Land, Earthrise , Elemental , Yukon Kings, [3] Isle de Jean Charles, [4] Marie's Dictionary, [5] Soleá, Sanctuaries of Silence, [6] The Atomic Tree, [7] Laugh Clown Laugh [8] and What Would it Look Like.
His films have played at festivals including: New York Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, SXSW Film Festival, Thessalonioki Documentary Film Festival, Hot Docs, Camden Intl Film Festival, Melbourne Intl Film Festival, San Francisco Intl Film Festival and Sheffield Documentary Film Festival. They have been featured and distributed on PBS and PBS's POV, National Geographic, The New York Times , The Atlantic , The New Yorker , and exhibited at the Smithsonian Museum and London Barbican.
He is the founder and executive editor of Emergence magazine, [9] a National Magazine Award nominated and Webby winning publication exploring the threads connecting ecology, culture and spirituality. He is the host of Emergence Magazine's weekly podcast.
Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer and pianist. Nicknamed "Sassy" and "The Divine One", she won two Grammy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, and was nominated for a total of nine Grammy Awards. She was given an NEA Jazz Masters Award in 1989. Critic Scott Yanow wrote that she had "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century".
Edmund "Ed" Kuepper is a German-born Australian guitarist, vocalist and songwriter. He co-founded the punk band The Saints in 1973, the experimental post-punk group Laughing Clowns and the grunge-like The Aints!. He has also recorded over a dozen albums as a solo artist using a variety of backing bands. His highest charting solo album, Honey Steel's Gold, appeared in November 1991 and reached No. 28 on the ARIA Albums Chart. His other top 50 albums are Black Ticket Day, Serene Machine and Character Assassination. At the ARIA Music Awards of 1993 he won Best Independent Release for Black Ticket Day and won the same category in 1994 for Serene Machine.
James Wan is an Australian filmmaker. He has primarily worked in the horror genre as the co-creator of the Saw and Insidious franchises and the creator of The Conjuring Universe. The lattermost is the highest-grossing horror franchise at over $2 billion. Wan is also the founder of film and television production company Atomic Monster.
The Day the Clown Cried is an unfinished and unreleased 1972 Swedish-French drama film directed by and starring Jerry Lewis. It is based on an original screenplay by Joan O'Brien and Charles Denton, from a story idea by O'Brien, with additional material from Lewis. The film was met with controversy regarding its premise and content, which features a circus clown who is imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp.
The King and the Clown is a 2005 South Korean historical drama film starring Kam Woo-sung, Jung Jin-young, and Lee Joon-gi. It was adapted from the 2000 stage play, Yi ("You") about Yeonsangun of Joseon, a Joseon dynasty king and a court clown who mocks him. It was released on 29 December 2005, runs for 119 minutes; and distributed domestically by Cinema Service and internationally by CJ Entertainment.
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee is a Sufi mystic and lineage successor in the Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya Sufi Order. He is an extensive lecturer and author of several books about Sufism, mysticism, dreamwork and spirituality.
The Man Who Laughs is a 1928 American synchronized sound romantic drama film directed by the German Expressionist filmmaker Paul Leni. While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized musical score with sound effects using both sound-on-disc and sound-on-film processes. The film is an adaptation of Victor Hugo's 1869 novel of the same name, and stars Mary Philbin as the blind Dea and Conrad Veidt as Gwynplaine. The film is known for the grotesque grin on the character Gwynplaine's face, which often leads it to be classified as a horror film. Film critic Roger Ebert stated "The Man Who Laughs is a melodrama, at times even a swashbuckler, but so steeped in expressionist gloom that it plays like a horror film."
Peter Sohn is an American filmmaker, animator, storyboard artist, and voice actor. He is best known for directing the Pixar animated films The Good Dinosaur (2015) and Elemental (2023), the latter of which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. He also voiced Emile in Ratatouille (2007), Squishy in Monsters University (2013), Ciccio in Luca (2021), and Sox in Lightyear (2022).
Jung Jin-young is a South Korean actor. He has starred in numerous films, including Hi! Dharma!, Bunt, and The Case of Itaewon Homicide. Jung is best known for his frequent collaborations with director Lee Joon-ik, as Once Upon a Time in a Battlefield and its sequel Battlefield Heroes, The Happy Life, Sunny, and particularly for his role as King Yeonsan in the hugely successful King and the Clown.
One: The Movie is an independent documentary that surveys beliefs on the meaning of life, matching with the view that "we are all one". The movie was created and directed by Michigan filmmakers Carter Scott, Ward M. Powers and Diane Powers, and featured interviews with Deepak Chopra, Robert Thurman, Thich Nhat Hanh, Jaggi Vasudev, and others.
Steve Nguyen is an American director, writer, artist and film producer. Nguyen and fellow director Choz Belen formed Studio APA, a multimedia collective that specializes in the production of animated films, children's books and music videos.
Elemental is a 2012 documentary film directed by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee and Gayatri Roshan. The film was premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival on October 9, 2012, in Mill Valley, California.
The Global Oneness Project is a free multimedia education platform providing stories and lessons for growing minds.
Segun Arinze is a veteran Nigerian actor and singer.
Earthrise is a 2018 documentary by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee. The film tells the story of the first image captured of the Earth from space in 1968, as recalled by the Apollo 8 astronauts. The film premiered at Tribeca Film Festival on April 21, 2018 and had its online premiere on the New York Times Op-Docs and the PBS Series, POV, on October 2, 2018. In 2018, it won the Audience Award at AFI DOCS and won Best Documentary Short at Raindance Film Festival. After airing on PBS, it was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Short Documentary at the 40th News and Documentary Emmy Award.
Shirikiana Aina is an American film director, cinematographer, producer, and writer. Shirikiana was born in Detroit, MI. She is a member of the LA Film Rebellion. She founded Mypheduh Films, Inc., a distribution company for independent Pan African Films. The company produced several features from the filmmakers of the LA Film Rebellion. She also co-founded Negod Gwad Productions, a nonprofit film company providing support to indie filmmakers. She has taught courses in script writing and film production at Howard University. She is married to film director Haile Gerima.
Voice of Silence is a 2020 South Korean indie crime drama film written and directed by Hong Eui-jeong, from her screenplay which was selected as one of the top 12 projects at Venice Biennale College-Cinema 2016/2017 in 2016. It stars Yoo Ah-in and Yoo Jae-myung. The first feature directorial debut of Hong Eui-jeong, the film was premiered in South Korea on October 15, 2020. The film received almost universal critical acclaim, particularly for its dark comedy, social subtext, and performances. It won Cheval Noir Award for Best Film at the 2021 Fantasia International Film Festival and Best Film at the 2021 Busan Film Critics Awards.
Sands of Silence: Waves of Courage is a 2016 documentary film that addresses the spectrum of sexual violence, from child sexual abuse and clergy abuse to rape and sex trafficking. It was directed, written and produced by filmmaker Chelo Alvarez-Stehle.
Aina Dumlao is a Filipino-American actress best known for her roles as Andie Lee in MacGyver (2016), Natalie in Ballers (2018), Gerlie Bernardo in Grey's Anatomy (2021), and Evie Dela Rosa in the limited series The Unusual Suspects (2021).
Hong Eui-jeong is a South Korean film director, screenwriter and producer. She has won the Blue Dragon Film Awards for Best New Director, Best New Director at the Asian Film Awards, Buil Film Awards and Korean Association of Film Critics Awards, and Best Director at the Baeksang Arts Awards for her feature directorial debut in indie crime drama film Voice of Silence (2020).