On 14 October 2006 the opening premiere of the movie about the life and work of Shri Mataji, “Freedom and Liberation”, took place in the ARRI movie theatre in Munich. Munich is an important film production point in Germany, and hosts more companies producing technical film equipment than Hollywood.
Carolin Dassel, the writer and director of the movie, has worked relentlessly for the last two years to realize this incredible piece of work, based on the idea of Philip Zeiss. Carolin started the first shooting in September 2003 in Cabella with her film crew. This included a two-hour interview with Shri Mataji and her husband, Sir CP Srivastava, in the Palazzo Doria Castle. It was literally the last public interview that Shri Mataji gave. Then Carolin and her team shot for several weeks in India in Ganapatipule, Pune, Delhi, the Sahaja Yoga health centre in Vashi, and many more places. Interviews with Shri Mataji’s daughters, Kalpana and Sadana, give us a very personal glimpse of the family life of Shri Mataji.
The film was produced on state-of-the-art professional standard (Super 16mm) film to ensure maximum quality, with some inserts shot in Super8 black and white. The film also includes some original footage of Shri Mataji’s talks on video.
Together with Sepp Reidinger, head of several technical departments at ARRI Munich, the production company, DEVI-Film, was set up at the beginning of production. Funding for the film came from the Film and TV Fund of Bavaria, the public TV program, Bayerischer Rundfunk, and the Munich Film Academy where Carolin graduated with this film.
With the support of Sepp Reidinger, the film premiere was held in the prestigious ARRI cinema in the heart of Munich. An audience of about three hundred people waited eagerly for the movie to start. The audience greatly enjoyed the film, and some were deeply touched.
After the screening Thomas Menge, who hosted the event, introduced Carolin who called the crew and some of the interviewed people on stage. After that, Thomas led a small program for the remaining audience of about one hundred people who had the chance to get their self-realisation. Many of them actually felt the cool breeze.
The official TV screening was held on 22 October 2006 on Bayerischer Rundfunk, the third program of Public German Television.
More information is available on the official website (for the time being in German), www.nirmaladevi-film.de.