ILLUMINATE’s Silver Linings Virtual Screening Series presents a virtual encore of the 2018 ILLUMINATE Audience Award winner STAY HUMAN from filmmaker and beloved world-renowned musician Michael Franti.

Franti will join live from Bali for an online post-screening Q&A and play an acoustic set in a live musical Reel Healing entitled “Together As One.” The virtual screening and performance will show on Thursday, May 28 at 5:00 pm PDT on https://illuminate.eventive.org/welcome.

Stay Human, directed by and featuring Franti, is the third film of the month-long, weekly watch-at-home program Silver Linings Screening Series: Loving Life After Lockdown.
The free live weekly series features a lineup of life-affirming, uplifting feature narratives and documentaries alongside live filmmaker Q&A’s, interactive discussions and the festival’s signature Reel Healing events. Funds will be raised for Covid-19 everyday heroes.

The virtual film screenings take place at a scheduled time, but will be available for a 24-hour replay period. The programs can be watched on a computer, tablet, mobile device or smartTV (through mirroring). The films can also be watched on AppleTV via the Eventive app. The fourth and final film selection of the series will be announced during Thursday’s live program.

About Stay Human

During these turbulent times, the feeling of helplessness is an epidemic. In a quest to find a path to stay human and hold on to humanity in the craziness of this world, Michael Franti takes viewers on an experiential journey through his songs and stories of people who have chosen to overcome cynicism with optimism and hope.

Michael shares the tales of Robin Lim, a midwife who opened a birthing clinic in the aftermath of a devastating typhoon in the Philippines, Steve & Hope Dezember, a young couple whose love carries them through Steve’s battle with ALS, Arief Rabik, an environmental scientist in Bali who perfected a method to make industrial and household products with bamboo in an effort to curb deforestation, and Sive Mazinyo and Busisiwwe Vazi, who help inspire their community of Port Elizabeth, South Africa, through music and education.

Michael reflects on his own personal journey facing adversity as a child, struggling to find his voice as a musician, and how he came to find inspiration through these stories. He hopes to inspire people to become changemakers by utilizing creativity, tenacity, and heart to face our daily challenges as individuals, and together as citizens of our planet to STAY HUMAN.

Senior Programmer Sheron Foster recalls the joy of ILLUMINATE’s first showing of the film in Sedona, “Stay Human enjoyed a rousing Southwest Premiere at the 2018 ILLUMINATE Film Festival, where a full house laughed and cried during the film, then sung and danced on stage with Michael. He brought us all together and brought down the house.”


About Michael Franti

Michael Franti is a globally recognized musician, humanitarian, activist, and award-winning
filmmaker revered for his high-energy live shows, inspiring music, devotion to
health and wellness, worldwide philanthropic efforts and the power of optimism.

Throughout his multi-decade career, Franti has earned Billboard No. 1’s with triumphantly hopeful hits “Sound of Sunshine” and “Say Hey (I Love You),” five Top 30 Hot AC singles, eight Top 25 AAA Singles and three Billboard Top 5 Rock Albums. His most recent album Stay Human Vol. II (Thirty Tigers), which was influenced by the film Stay Human, debuted at No. 1 on both the Americana and Independent Album charts and received critical acclaim from USA Today, Billboard, Associated Press and Paste.

Franti believes first and foremost in using music as a vehicle for positive change - his potent hybrid blend of hip-hop, rock, folk, reggae and electronic music, once again demonstrates Franti’s singular ability to create music that’s both through-provoking and triumphantly hopeful.


Films Drive Change

Stay Human is a film Woody Harrelson coined, "The film every human needs right now.” IL-LUMINATE’s Silver Linings virtual screening series is designed to provide comfort, guidance, community connection and inspiration in a time of global crisis.

“As the world begins to reopen, we find ourselves desperately craving a sense of normalcy,” says Danette Wolpert, executive director of the ILLUMINATE Film Festival, “but many of us are interested in manifesting a very different ‘normal’ than the one we lived pre-pandemic. We know the changes, if they are to be widespread and lasting, begin within.

Entertainment has impact - it can plant the seed of change within us. Stories and characters inspire and help us to make new choices, dream new dreams and create new ways to live, so that we may look back a year or more from now and see this Great Pause as our greatest gift - as the driver of who we have become.”

To reserve a free ticket to the virtual at-home screening of Stay Human, visit https://illuminate.eventive.org/welcome. Space is limited.

ILLUMINATE Film Festival, a 501(c)3 sponsored organization, is the world's premier film festival for conscious cinema. Founded on the premise that the language of film is universal and a dynamic force in carrying messages to the masses, the Festival showcases the best of transformational media to uplift, inspire, and transform. For more information, visit http://www.illuminatefilmfestival.com or call 928-421-1108.

By Danette Wolpert