Born in Vietnam, raised in Southeast Asia, Anh Crutcher is a female film-maker with an eye toward the adventurous mysteries of the big and natural world.
To the Beat of a Different Drummer YAKOANA's Producer and Director's Fascinating journey with Earth and Spirit.
Anh Crutchers quest for meaning has led her from Force I I storms off-shore to the pyramids of Giza to biodynamic farms and the Indigenous village of Kari-Oka. She began her career as a 'mediaite" in NewYork City. Strangely enchanted by the notion that the real law and infrastructure that prevails is that of the natural world, Crutcher left the urban hot-bed of Manhattan for two years as crew on sailboats. These years influenced by wind, tides and stars began Crutcher's pondering about the damage - both to the environment and to ourselves - that disassociation from nature bears.
Crutcher then joined Mystic Fire Video. Working from a hobbit-like home near Montauk's beaches with a small team of 'mystics," she began the internationally successful sales force of the PBS hit Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers. Her spiritual education, she says, began with the material of Mystic Fire: the works of J. Krishnamurti, Joseph Campbell, H.H. the Dalai Lama. and David Bohm.
Three years later, Crutcher was lured by an ex-Olympic bobstedder and race-car driver to Egypt's Sahara desert. Crutcher acted as Associate Producer of the Emmy Award-winning documentary Mystery of the Sphinx, an experience made all the more memorable by horse back riding around the pyramids and Sphinx, camping in the Sahara desert, dancing to the B-52s with galabayed Egyptian men under a canopy of stars, and spending the night (illegally) locked in the Great Pyramid.
Crutcher's crowning achievement began with the invitation by Marcos Terena (Terena Tribe and Indigenous leader) and Brian Keane (Founder, Land is Life) to spearhead the only authorized crew to film the First World Conference of Indigenous Peoples. Transported to a Brazilian jungle village thronging with some one thousand Native leaders and Shamans from every part of the world, Crutcher found herself thunderstruck by the deep spiritual essence and warrior-like courage of Tribal Peoples. The experience was near mythical: people carrying ancient beliefs whose mission was to preserve a planet through
the very act of reconnecting "modern" humans to its majesty.
For years Crutcher struggled to raise funds for the film's completion and to keep her faith that the message of the earth-centric Peoples was vital. Now, with YAKOANA's release, December 1998; $29.95) and international awards, Crutcher reflects:
"The cultural, political and environmental struggles of Indigenous Peoples grabbed me by the ears. The Conference dragged me through the flames and at its end, I felt scorched like a jack-rabbit - afraid at the intensity of our destruction yet tremendously buoyed by the knowing of people such as these Tribal leaders.I am filled now, at YAKOANA's completion but also so vastly emptied! My challenge is to continue to live a life that seems valuable."
Currently volunteering at the San Francisco Zen Centers' Green Gulch Farms, Crutcher is "thankful to have some earth to dig in while I plot my next film."
Profits from YOKOANA go to Indigenous Communities.
