The Kenya Schools Fund Needs You (And our Solstice Party does too)

It's the Building Hope Holiday Happy Hour!

Wednesday, Dec 21    5:30 - 7:30  p.m.

Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, 107 W. 6th St. Austin

$5 wine and cocktails/half-price appetizers

Turk will be signing the beautiful new book/dvd of Building Hope

Books are also available online at www.nobelity.org  - a meaningful and beautiful Christmas present that supports our work.

In the past year, we've worked at schools across rural Kenya to build new classrooms, water systems, libraries and computer labs. Your support has provided real hope and opportunity for 3,000 students at the Amboni, Bondeni, Daaba, Honi, Mahiga and Mugaka Schools.

There is more work to be done. To make a tax-deductible year-end gift to fill the following needs, please go to nobelity.org/donate:

Library and Computer Labs at the Amboni, Kabiruini or Irbaan schools

$5,000 - build a library or a computer lab (with extra thanks to AMD and Lenovo)

$250 - a shelf full of library books 

$25 - 3 library books including classics in English and Kiswahili

Rainwater System and Classroom at the Mutaki School

$10,000 - build a rainwater collection and purification system

$5,000 - build a new classroom (using bricks made by the parents)

Textbooks for Daaba, Mugaka and Mahiga Schools

$25 - textbooks for two students              

$500 - textbooks for a classroom/grade

Mosquito Nets to prevent malaria at the Talek School

$10 - a life-saving mosquito net for one student sleeping in the dorm      

$100 - nets for ten students 

Building Hope Book/DVD Release Party - What a ride!

Wow - what a ride! Fom the end of our successful Kickstarter campaign for Building Hope to the book/dvd party on Dec 11 we had two months to work miracles. Two months to revise and copyedit a manuscript that tells the story of Mahiga Hope High School and The Nobelity Project (thanks to copy editor Dana Frank for a great job). Two months to design a coffee-table book with nearly 200 color photos from my five continent journey on the past three movies (thanks toDJ Stout and Stu Taylor at Pentagram Design for a gorgeous design). Two months that also had to include full-color printing on a giant Heidelberg Speedmaster Press (thanks to Rob Wallace and everyone at The Whitley Group, including the master printers that worked over the Thanksgiving weekend).

The book is now at Roswell Book Binders in Phoenix (the photographs may be from all over the world but the book and the dvd are Made in America). The DVDs of my film Building Hope will be added to each book by hand. On Sunday, December 11, we celebrate it all at the Big Book Bash. Hope those in Austin can join us from 6 to 9 at El Sol y La Luna on 6th Street for cocktails, great food, fabulous music by Carolyn Wonderland and special guests, and the first opportunity to take home a copy of Building Hope - the book and dvd.

Purchase party tickets and order your copies at www.nobelity.org

Thanks to everyone who purchased copies on Kickstarter or at Nobelity.org. If you can't make the party, you can still buy copies at www.nobelity.org. We'll get them off to everyone the week after the big party.

What a ride!  turk

- here's the party invite:

Party with a purpose! The Building Hope Book Bash!  Sunday, December 11 6 - 9 p.m.    El Sol y La Luna 600 E. 6th St. Austin Music by   Carolyn Wonderland & Special Surprise Guests!  Great food and cocktails  $40 in advance ($50 at the door if space available) $100 for book and bash A moving and meaningful gift for the holidays. Proceeds support our Kenya Schools Fund - building clean water systems, classrooms and libraries in rural Kenya.      It's a book! Nine months after our new film BUILDING HOPE won the Lone Star Audience Award at SXSW, The Nobelity Project is releasing a book that tells the full story of Mahiga Hope High School and our amazing global journey.  And every  purchase supports our work with rural schools in East Africa.  Filled with color photos of our work around the world and insights from the Nobel Laureates and other global leaders in our films, this special edition book package also includes an advance DVD of the film the Austin Chronicle calls "Inspirational Redbull for the humanitarian soul."   Can't make the party? Order books by Dec. 18th for holiday delivery.    Thanks to everyone who ordered on Kickstarter! We could't have done this without you. Love to hear from you if you are interested in making a year-end gift to The Nobelity Project. We have so many new projects underway that every dollar makes a huge difference-from $5 for a library book to $5000 for a library! Contact Christy at christy@nobelity.org or 512-263-7971.  Many, many thanks from Turk, Christy and the entire team at The Nobelity Project--including a couple of thousand kids in Kenya...   ps. Save the Date! March 25, 2012 for the Artist and Filmmakers Dinner Four Seasons Austin.

Building Hope - The Book! With DVD of the Movie

As Building Hope continues to play film festivals and win awards – and as we continue to make fast progress on construction projects at ten Kenya schools – we're very happy to announce what may be our most exciting project yet. Why so exciting? Because of the pace that it's happening, because of an innovative new funding model, and because it gives us the chance to tell the full tale of the Nobelity Project and the amazing journey we've been on.

The story of the high school was much bigger than we could tell in one film. The story of the Nobelity Project is bigger than the three feature

films we've made. So we're very happy to announce the publication of a beautiful new coffee table book that is going tell the full story in words and in pictures.

Building Hope - the Story of Mahiga Hope High School and The Nobelity Project is now available for sale through the innovative fundraising platform, Kickstarter.com. You buy the book in advance and we use the funds to pay for the cost of design and printing. The best part is, with every copy of the book you get an advance dvd of the film, Building Hope.

Please watch our new video pitch for the campaign, then choose which level you want to help us reach our goal. Kickstarter is an all-or-nothing platform. If we don't raise our goal of $25,000, we don't get a dime (and the book project won't happen) so we REALLY need you to step up and buy a book (or many books) for you, your family and your friends.

The book release party is set for Sunday, December 11 at El Sol y La Luna, and we're expecting quite a celebration (Those of you who partied with Dennis Quaid and Marcia Ball at last year's El Sol event know it's a blast!). This book and dvd package is going to be a great holiday gift with meaning, and we're also recommending it to companies who want to buy copies for their clients and employees.

The Kickstarter Project link is also on our website at www.nobelity.org. We've also just launched a fully rebuilt website (way to go Christy!) that has links to our feature films, our shorts, the Kenya Schools Fund and our work in schools. Check it out!

And there are three important dates for your calenders:

Sept 17 to Oct 26 - The campaign to presell Building Hope (the book and dvd)

Sunday, Dec 11 - The Holiday Party/Book Release at El Sol y La Luna

Sunday, March 25, 2012 - The Artists & Filmmakers Dinner at the Four Seasons Austin

It's 9-11-11, ten years after the attacks on the World Trade Center, and

I’m on the Texas-Mexico border this evening with Joe Klein from Time Magazine and, ironically, the great photographer Lynsey Addario who was tough enough to endure her kidnapping in Libya earlier this year and continues to be one of America’s greatest news photographers. All three of us spent much of the decade since 9-11 filming, shooting photos and writing in a lot of crazy places around the world, and each of our journeys seemed to have been launched by the incredible tragedy of 9-11 and by America’s response to the attack on The World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Like the rest of America and the world, there’s no going back to who we were before. We can’t undo the falling of the towers or the growing tragedies of the Iraq and Afghan Wars, but we’re still searching for the best way ahead through the stories we tell in words and pictures. Much of the diary below is about Willie Nelson and a voice that continues to fill a need in so many people. Willie’s still out there doing what he does. The rest of us can only follow his example to the best of our abilities. One happy note – the diary mentions our upcoming American Masters film on Willie which later premiered to great acclaim and was rewarded with an Emmy Award for the best non-fiction series. Thanks for all the music, Willie. We still love you; still need you.

So here’s my Slate Diary #3 – in the wake of 9-11.

http://www.slate.com/id/116912/entry/117112/

And stay tuned for some great news about my new book, Building Hope - The Story of Mahiga Hope High School. It's going to be beautiful.

We are just back from Kenya and a fantastic working trip to Mahiga Hope High School. Now part of the Kieni West Education District, the school has a fine principal, deputy principal and a growing staff of teachers. Enrollment in the high school has grown from our first nine students two years ago to over 150, now in grades 9 - 11 with an even mix of boys and girls.

Construction on the last two buildings - the science labs and the new primary school classrooms - is also complete. On the primary school side, both the new preschool and primary school

playgrounds are gorgeous, and we were thrilled to cut the ribbons on the final four stone classrooms. Once and forever, the mud floors are gone! The combined schools now have 600 students, all of them working hard to take advantage of this opportunity for a quality education.

We still have some funding challenges. A desk, chair and classroom materials for one student costs $50. We're almost a hundred kids behind and growing by 100 per year, so it's important to raise $10,000 in the coming months.

The story of Mahiga Hope High School is told in our new feature film, Building Hope, an inspiring work which won major awards at the SXSW Film Festival and at Maui Film Fest. Just like the miracle of the amazing changes that have come to this community, the film ends with a miracle of it's own. After months of no rain in this very dry area, The Grand Opening of the high school and the first basketball game on the RainWater Court were rained out by a beautiful, heavy downpour that nearly filled our 30,000 liter water tanks.

That miracle seemed to repeat itself on this trip. With the entire high school, we gathered in the dining hall/theatre. After the drama club put on their first play for us, it was our turn to turn out the lights and show the

students the film in which they star. The room was filled with laughter and joy as we watched how this community's dream grew into reality. As the film progressed towards the miraculous rainstorm that ends it, I began to hear scattered raindrops on the roof above us. Once again, this was the first rain in an extended period and the local farmers were on the verge of total crop failure.

Within minutes, the rain was pouring down in a giant flood of huge drops mixed in with small hail that had been formed high in the clouds above Mt. Kenya. We turned up the movie to overcome the deafening clatter on the roof but it didn't matter for the sound of rain from the film and the skies above us were all one.

To everyone who contributed to building this school - or who is thinking of contributing - you are a part of great and wonderful miracle. Your faith and partnership in this great community will provide real opportunity to young people for generations to come. That's the kind of miracle we can all believe in.

Turk Pipkin, The Nobelity Project, www.nobelity.org

- Don't forget to watch the trailer to Building Hope at nobelity.org. Our New York premiere is coming up on Monday, July 25 at the Tribeca Cinemas.

Building Hope repped by Ostrow and Company

With momentum from the Lone Star Audience Award at SXSW Film Fest and Best Documentary at Maui Film Fest, our new film Building Hope is now repped by Ostrow and Company, leading producers representation firm based in Beverly Hills California, led by top rep Page Ostrow.

Building Hope tells the story of The Nobelity Project's partnership with a rural Kenyan community to build the area's first high school. Proceeds from the film support the Kenya Schools Fund, building classrooms, water systems, libraries and computer libraries at schools across Kenya.

The New York Premiere of Building Hope is Monday, July 25 at the Tribeca Cinemas, 54 Varick St. Tickets are available online at www.nobelity.org.

For more information on distribution rights please visit www.ostrowandcompany.com or call Page Ostrow 310

276 5007

Building Hope at the Violet Crown Cinema

The Violet Crown Cinema is Austin's coolest new theatre. It's located downtown on 2nd St., has luxurious seats and great tech, a full bar and appetizer menu, and a lineup of great films.

Following the Lone Star Audience Award at SXSW Film Fest (and some great reviews), Building Hope opens Friday for a week of screenings that benefit The Nobelity Project's Kenya Schools Fund.

Marc Savlov at The Austin Chronicle called the film, "a medicine for melancholy." And we have to admit that it is a rare kind of doc about Africa - an inspiring one.

Show times are:

12:00PM 1:45PM 3:30PM 5:15PM 7:00PM 9:00PM And 11 p.m. on Fri/Sat

Tickets are selling fast, and with just 50 seats per screening, it's important to buy your tickets in advance at www.violetcrowncinema.com

Thanks to our great partners for helping us spread the word and bringing their own groups and supporters to the theatre. These include:

Friday - Austin Film Society & Origin Magazine

Saturday - Austin Woman and ATX Magazine

Sunday - Results.org and One.org (two amazing groups in the global fight against poverty)

Monday - Bazaarvoice

Tuesday - Well Aware (special tickets for this one at www.wellawareworld.org)

Wednesday - Citizen Generation

Thursday - Bazaarvoice

There's a reception with the filmmakers in the lobby every evening at 8 p.m. If you attend the 7 p.m. screening, we'll be waiting for you when the film ends. If you attend the 9 p.m., the reception will help warm you up for the move. And the Violet Crown is offering happy hour specials every night.

Check out the trailer to Building Hope at www.nobelity.org

You're gonna love this movie!