"Rumi Returning" Wows
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Sells out at the SF Film Festival

"Bring 'Rumi' back to Santa Fe and Albuquerque," Producers Are Asked

In proclaiming the 2007 Santa Fe Film Festival's, "great pleasure to present the US Premiere of Rumi Returning", Jon Bowman, Executive Director of the festival, noted that, "This is exactly the kind of endeavor we like to get behind - not only a work of extreme visual beauty, but also a feature exhibiting immense passion and conveying a profound, spiritual message certain to resonate deeply with viewers."

Resonate deeply, it did.

On a blustery, December Saturday afternoon at the largest venue in Santa Fe, the line to see Rumi Returning began forming two hours before the start of the documentary biopic about the 13th century Sufi mystic poet who inspired the whirling dervishes of Turkey.   Hundreds of those hoping to buy last minute tickets were turned away.

 "Of the several films I had the opportunity to see at this year's festival, Rumi Returning was the most beautifully filmed, and the most thought-provoking and intellectually stimulating," said Bob Ross, a talk show host for KSFR Public Radio Santa Fe, after the movie.  "For the first time in my life I truly began to sense the broad importance and beautifulness of the Islamic religion.  Rumi Returning is simply a magnificent movie that people of all cultures should see and discuss."

Discuss, they did.

Most  of the sold out audience stayed in their seats at the end of the movie, and talked with filmmakers Kell Kearns and Cynthia Lukas.  They did not leave until organizers suggested it was time to prepare the theatre for the next festival screening.  Seeming to sum up the crowd's reaction, Candace Mathews declared that, "Its message of universal peace in a time fraught with strife and uncertainties is a balm."

Bob Ross' thirty minute Public Radio interview with Kearns and Lukas, recorded at the Santa Fe Farmers Market, can be heard online at http://tinyurl.com/2rpcgr.  Provided by KSFR/101.1 FM/Santa Fe Public Radio and Santa Fe Farmers Market.