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Wednesday, February 1, 2012

1st Lusophonic Spiritist/Spiritualist Film Festival, February 21 – 25, 2012


Calling all free spirits in London: Join us for a week of films that have potential to transform our lives. Come and get connected with like-minded souls, and discover the best of the production of spiritual films from Brazil, some of them movie blockbusters never seen in the UK. These features and documentaries inspire, enlighten and challenge us.

Check the highlights below and click here for the full programme. All films are original Portuguese versions with English subtitles. Tickets for all individual films are available for free, so early booking is highly advisable. Some film screenings will be followed by a debate, and there will also be book stalls with plenty of books in all languages.

Dates: February 21 – 25, 2012
Venue: Room G34 - Arts Building, Queen Mary University of London.
327 Mile End Road (Mile End Tube Station) - London E14 NS - Map
Free bookings: http://bit.ly/SpiritFilm

Nosso Lar (The Astral City)
Direction: Wagner de Assis. The biggest film ever made in Brazil. A huge box office hit with more than 4 millions tickets sold. Based on the bestselling book Nosso Lar / Our Home dictated by the spirit André Luiz to the Brazilian medium Chico Xavier. After dying in a surgery, the doctor André Luiz awakes and realizes that there is life after life.

The Spirits’ Film
Direction: André Marouço, Michel Dubret. A drama freely based on The Spirits’ Book (1857), by Allan Kardec, the founding work of Spiritism. After losing his wife, a man enters into depression and began to suffer from alcoholism. When he is about to take his own life, a stranger gives to him a copy of The Spirits’ Book. It is the beginning of a life-changing journey. 



The Medium’s Mothers
Direction: Glauber Filho, Halder Gomes. Elisa, Ruth and Lara are three women with unbearable losses in their lives. The spiritual comfort finds a place in their hearts when they meet Chico Xavier, the greatest medium of all time. They receive, through his mediumship, letters of their departed ones, which confirm that there is no death and that life goes on. Based on true stories.


The Pyschographed Letters by Chico Xavier
Direction: Cristiana Grumbach. For many decades, mothers and fathers of different religions, who had lost their children, sought the Spiritist medium Chico Xavier (1910 – 2002) in the hope of receiving psychographed letters from their departed ones. In this touching documentary, these parents tell us how these letters changed their lives. 


The Great Synthesis of Pietro Ubaldi
Direction: Oceano Vieira de Melo. A look back at the life of Italian Spiritualist philosopher and writer Pietro Ubaldi (1886 – 1972). Considering themes such as reincarnation, spiritual evolution, life after death and mediumship, his books were received through inspiration and represent the synthesis of knowledge in the areas of Science, Philosophy and Religion. 


Allan Kardec, the Educator
Direction: Edson Audi. Documentary recounting the life of French philosopher and educator Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail (1804-1869), also known as Allan Kardec. The film was shot in the places where he lived: Lyon, Yverdon and Paris. Learn more about the works and the thought of the man who codified the Spiritist Doctrine. 10 am on February 21st


Bezerra de Menezes: a Spirit’s Journey
Glauber Filho, Joel Pimentel. The compelling story of the physician, politician, writer and humanitarian Adolfo Bezerra de Menezes (1831 – 1900) who became known as “the physician of the poor” for giving free care to thousands of patients in nineteenth century Rio de Janeiro. 4 pm on February 22nd.





Friday, January 27, 2012

Advanced Call for Proposals for the 2012 annual Meeting of LIHPE (Association of Researchers on Spiritism), São Paulo, Brazil.

Since 2003, the annual meeting of LIHPE (Association of Researchers on Spiritism) has been a lively space dedicated to discussions and studies on Spiritualist themes according to academic standards. LIHPE is essentially a virtual community of researchers interested in academic studies but not necessarily composed by Spiritualist people (in this sense, LIHPE is a non-denominational group). Members should only observed the group behavior standards in order to participate.

In its beginning, LIHPE was created to support records on history of Spiritualism (in its Brazilian version called Spiritism - a term originally created in France in the XIX century). Other research interests were then added to the group, from a wide variety of academic fields such as philosophy, physics, psychology, social sciences, anthropology among others.

Since its inception, LIHPE founder, Eduardo Carvalho Monteiro, realized that simple collaboration at distance would not be enough to establish groups or even make people work together. The annual meeting ENLIHPE was then created. The city of São Paulo is the main host place for the encounter that takes place at CCDPE-ECM (Eduardo Carvalho Monteiro Center for Culture, Documentation and Research on Spiritism), an institution created by the effort of many people after Monteiro's death. CCDPE-ECM also houses Monteiro's private library containing a large collection of Spiritualist works.

CCDPE-ECM: the leading institution that houses LIHPE annual meeting
that traditionally takes place on August.
CCDPE-ECM has been housing LIHPE members for the last 4 years. The encounter brings exhibitors from all Brazilian regions and states such as Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná, Piauí, Ceará, Bahia and Goiás. Previous international participation has been restricted to an Italian anthropologist who later submited a monograph in his country for publication. However, it is now time to open the meeting doors for more international collaboration.

If you have any work in the frontier between Spiritualism and other recognized sciences - or even non-recognized ones (such as Paranthropology), let us known. We invite you to submit an abstract for the the next LIHPE meeting (occurring on the 18-19th August). More information you will soon find on the LIHPE website www.lihpe.net.

Contact information: xavnet2@gmail.com.