Carving the Divine: The final battle

 

Master Koun Seki watching on as Grand Master Kourin Saito works. Image ©Yujiro Seki

It's over 10 years since director, writer and producer Yujiro Seki started making the widely lauded documentary Carving the Divine, a film which provides an intimate look into the lives and practice of the Buddhist sculptors of Japan. (Read a review here.)

Carving the Divine has become the official selection for 30 film festivals, showing in a total of 22 countries, and won awards at 13 festivals worldwide, such as winning the Best Director Award of a Foreign Language Documentary at World Cinema Milan and premiering at the Raindance Film Festival in London.

Master craftsman Koun Seki at work. Image ©Yujiro Seki

Throughout the decade its journey has been driven by its creator, how widespread access may soon be curtailed. ‘The world wants to see this unique 1400-year-old Japanese Buddhist art form. This is genuinely a one-of-a-kind documentary that you cannot see anywhere’, explains Yujiro Seki. ‘I’m ready to distribute Carving the Divine around the world.  But, there is one more hurdle that we must overcome. We must raise enough funds to start the distribution process. As we know, anything we do in this world costs money. I have invested so much emotionally, physically, and financially in this film that I don’t really have anything left. Yet, I would like to distribute this film so that I could give everyone a chance to see this profound art tradition.’

 

‘To get started with the distribution process, $10,000 is the minimum that needed to even start the process. If we fail to reach our funding goal, Carving the Divine will be only available at small screening events and stored in my hard drive until further notice.’

 

Today, November 1, 2022, Yujiro Seki is launching his final crowdfunding campaign. If you would like to support the worldwide distribution of this important film please head to https://igg.me/at/Carving-the-Divine