Filmmaker Interview: Gay Dillingham, Dying to Know: Ram Dass and Timothy Leary

With Gay Dillingham
Hosted by Téana David

Director and producer Gay Dillingham invites us into her years-long process of creating a film that chronicles the dynamic friendship between two distinct cultural icons. The conversation spans the nuts-and-bolts aspects of documentary filmmaking such as tracking down rare archival footage, to spiritual practices that help her stay attuned to her life’s mission, to the potential of psychedelics to assist in the dying process.

Gay Dillingham

Producer/Director/Owner, CNS Communications

Gay Dillingham has consistently juggled her parallel passions for the environment, public policy and communication through film all in an effort to deepen our human experience and success while on this marvelous planet. Gay started making films out of college in the late 80s. Her first, The WIPP Trail, narrated by Robert Redford cast a critical eye on our nation’s first and worlds only underground nuclear waste repository. It became a community organizing tool and aired on PBS nationally. My Body Belongs to Me, a children’s pro-active educational program on sexual abuse, earned the American Film Festival award for “Guidance and Values Education”. Her company Co-produced Dr. Andrew Weil’s first PBS programs in the 90s.

Gay then co-founded and managed two environmental companies, chaired the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board and was ED for the Livingry Foundation. Her work on the Korean peninsula as a filmmaker and one of thirty international women delegates is represented in the 2022 documentary film, Crossings.

Gay continued her passion for film producing/directing, Dying to Know: Ram Dass & Timothy Leary, a tool for making change around end of life, drug policy and consciousness.
 

Hosted by Téana David

Festival Co-Producer

With a passion for creating at the intersection of ecology, spirituality, and social justice, Téana David served as the director of Deepak HomeBase in New York City where she designed, curated, and produced a year-round transformational event series. Currently the co-director of Circle of Wisdom, she conducts video interviews with wisdom-keepers from different cultures to make their wisdom available to the next generations. She co-wrote her first TV pilot at age 19 for Canadian Television and has written numerous plays, including The Wonders (Spielberg Righteous Person’s Award), and Scars (Tonya Pinkin's Truth & Reconciliation Project), as well as numerous environmental messaging campaigns. Recent producing credits include Artists United for Amazonia and No Vote Left Behind, livestream events that garnered a combined viewership of 33 million. Téana holds an MFA in Contemporary Performance from Naropa University, an interdisciplinary degree comprised of performance, somatic studies, playwriting, and producing. She serves on the board of The Tribal Trust Foundation, The Evolutionary Leaders Circle, and is a founding member of Artists For Amazonia.

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