On December 5, 2003, Stephen Simon's Indigo won the Audience Choice Award at the 4th annual Santa Fe Film Festival. The film is about prescient children who can communicate via extra-sensory means and how they are able to work with disbelievers and, in time, win them over. It was shot in 20 days on $500,000, made from start to finish within eight months, and completed just 10 days before the festival.

Indigo is a film about loneliness, redemption, and the healing powers and grace of the new generation of Indigo (psychic and gifted) children being born into the world. Although the story is fictional, the emotions and actions of the film resonate with the spiritual dynamics of life today.

The dramatic core of the film is the relationship that develops between a man whose life and family have dissolved due to a fateful mistake and his 10 year-old granddaughter with whom he goes on the run to protect her from a would-be kidnapper. Along the way, he discovers the power of his granddaughter's gifts which forever alter the lives of everyone she encounters.

Simon, producer of What Dreams May Come and Somewhere in Time, feels that filmmakers "have broken a pact with adult audiences," and are now targeting most of their films to teen-agers. Indigo was meant to be a movie that hopefully makes people feel better about being human beings, and shows who we are and why we're here—on a very small budget. That's what spiritual cinema is all about now. It's not about big movie stars or special effects. It's about going to an audience which the studios have forgotten, which is adults." Ultimately, Simon said, he hopes to help found a cable/satellite channel that offers a steady diet of such films which are intended to be spiritually uplifting without being preachy.

Indigo the movie • Cast and Crew • Spiritual Cinema Circle

About Stephen Simon

Stephen Simon is a veteran producer whose distinguished career includes the Presidency of two major production companies and the development and production of many well-known films such as: Smokey and the Bandit, The Goodbye Girl, The Electric Horseman, Somewhere in Time, the Academy Award winning What Dreams May Come, and the Emmy-nominated Lifetime movie Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story. He is also author of the definitive work The Force is With You: Mystical Movie Messages that Inspire Our Lives, published by Walsch Books, an imprint of Hampton Roads.

Recognizing the powerful effect—both positive and negative—that the media has upon our culture, Simon has become the leading spokesperson for a new genre he calls "Spiritual Cinema." These films examine who we are and why we are here, and illuminate the human condition through stories and images that inspire us to explore who we can be as humanity when we operate at our very best. Spiritual Cinema reflects our beliefs and values and illustrates their impact upon our lives and our society. In this context, spiritual refers not to religion but to the unseen divine essence that is life force itself. History has revealed that individuals or cultures that lose their connection to this essence become devoid of love, respect, and compassion.

To firmly establish Spiritual Cinema as a formidable force within the entertainment industry, Simon recently produced and directed the feature film Indigo, set for release in 2004. While Indigo embraces the values and principles of Spiritual Cinema, the financing and production of this film is a truly miraculous story of faith and vision. Collaborating with author and noted peace emissary James Twyman (whose "Beloved Community" helped to finance the production) and Neale Donald Walsch (author of the Conversations With God series, who co-wrote the screenplay and starred in the film), Simon firmly stakes his claim as a trailblazer in the annals of motion picture history.

An explosive grass roots movement called "Spiritual Cinema Communities," which is evolving as a result of Simon's seminars and courses, has contributed to the word-of-mouth promotion of spiritual films. Numerous invitations to screen Indigo at prestigious film festivals serve as a clear demonstration of support for his sacred vision. Simon is again collaborating with Neale Donald Walsch in the development and production of the motion picture Conversations With God, based on Neale's book and starring Neale, as himself. The film is slated for production in 2004.

As a speaker and presenter, Simon is challenging and provocative as he shares insights gained through his experiences as a filmmaker, storyteller, and student of the paradoxes of the human condition. Media and entertainment have moved beyond culture to become a driving force in the global economy. With anecdotes from his prolific career in the entertainment industry, he illustrates the impact of environments and experiences that ignite passion and inspire genius. Media and business represent an important connection for humans, making us feel a part of something larger than ourselves. With integrity and authenticity, both can contribute to the enrichment of the spirit.

Stephen Simon is co-founder and president of Moving Messages: The Institute for Spiritual Entertainment, Inc., an educational, development, and distribution non-profit corporation for feature films, television shows, documentaries, and educational and training programs. Its mission is to use traditional and new media to express ideas that illumine and inspire individual and social transformation. With a focus on spirituality and film, he teaches several seminars and writes a nationally syndicated column called "The Movie Mystic." He is a graduate of UCLA and Loyola Law School and was admitted to the California Bar in 1974. He practiced law from 1974 to 1976.

The Force Is With You

In The Force Is With You: Mystical Movie Messages That Inspire Our Lives, author Stephen Simon discusses over seventy films and concludes that those films, and scores of others, constitute a genre of film (Spiritual Cinema) that has yet to be recognized as such, until now. (Spiritual Cinema does not pertain to traditional religious films.) Simon also gives the reader a first-hand insight into the spiritual messages of these films and the film making process itself; furthermore, he makes daring predictions about the future of spiritual filmed entertainment. From films about "Reality and Time" (such as Matrix, Vanilla Sky, and Beautiful Mind) to films about "Visionary Adventures" (such as Star Wars, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Lost Horizon) to films about "The Power of Love" (such as It's A Wonderful Life, Cast Away, and Sleepless in Seattle), Simon's new book explores and illuminates inspiring movie messages from the unique perspective of a man who has actually produced classic films in the very genre his book examines — Somewhere in Time (Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, Christopher Plummer) and What Dreams May Come (Robin Williams, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Annabella Sciorra). Simon's book includes separate chapters detailing the behind-the-scenes saga of both these films.

Force connects two of the most extraordinary phenomena of our times: movies and spirituality. Box office grosses and ancillary sales for films have recently broken all previous records. The dawning of the new millennium has seen an explosion in interest in all aspects of spiritual entertainment. The publishing industry has recognized this phenomenon for years and has established a whole new category called Visionary Books, several of which are always on best seller lists. Television has embraced the phenomenon with huge hits such as Touched by an Angel and Crossing Over. The music industry has embraced visionary music (such as Enya and Enigma) for several years and platinum albums by such stars as Madonna and Jewel have recently contained spiritual themes. Hollywood has yet to capitalize on the power of Spiritual Cinema and its potential to lead box office revenues. Simon believes that the time has now come for the film industry to recognize Spiritual Cinema as its own genre, represented by an existing audience numbered in the tens of millions who eagerly await films that embody the power and hope of visionary stories.

"As we evolve as a species, we hit certain key moments in that evolution when old ways are discarded and new maps of behavior are forged. Movies are the most electrifying communications medium ever devised and the natural conduit for inspiring ourselves to look into the eternal issues of who we are and why we are here." — from the Introduction to The Force is With You: Mystical Movie Messages That Inspire Our Lives.

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