BreakThrough: Film Project Proposal

By Michal Abney

BreakThrough: Ordinary People Having ExtraOrdinary Conversations

Director: Michal Abney

Camera: Mike Chesworth

Sound: Mike Chesworth

Editor: ReInvented Media

Producers: Becky Schoenig

Writers: Michal Abney

Maria Benning

1. Working Hypothesis

Dictionary.com defines breakthrough as: any significant or sudden advance, development, achievement, or increase…that removes a barrier to progress. Our film by the same name, BreakThrough, will weave through a tapestry of interview subjects who have created opportunities for many others to remove barriers to personal happiness and peace.

Dr. Wayne Dyer has said: “When you change the way you are looking at something, the something that you are looking at changes.” Each of the individuals interviewed in our film has helped others to question their seeming reality, to realize that all is not as it appears, to understand that there is a way out of pain and suffering, and to break through stuck patterns of behavior and thinking by sharing processes and insights which affect true and lasting change.

Director Michal Abney serves as the interviewer, leading ordinary people through a set of extraordinary conversations. Deeply impacted by his own personal journey of pain and limitation into healing, and recognizing that he was assisted by a number of mentors and teachers along the way, he and the film’s team offer concrete glimpses into the stories of teachers who have successfully helped others break through to the other side.

Each mentor being interviewed shares commonalities they see in the individuals they work with, and what happens to their lives after they apply the processes and take the actions that are recommended. For example, many people have experienced the frustration of leaving a bad relationship only to find that they have recreated strikingly similar dynamics in the next one. Insights are given into how to do things differently in a healthier, more aware manner, so that what is lacking in an individual is healed. Now, instead of attracting partners based on what is missing and seeking fulfillment in another (which can only result in pain), the possibility is created for a joining of equal partners who realize that they are complete, in and of themselves.

Borrowing from (among others) eastern philosophies about karma (life lessons) and dharma (life’s purpose), BreakThrough is about freedom from pain. Illustrated beautifully by Mariane Parisi, one of the film’s interview subjects, the conversation between her and the director reveals ways in which a person can safely and fully release from pain so that is it never recreated.

Encompassed within the ten hours of footage already in the can, Michal Abney allows himself to be led through a number of different processes and reveals, on camera, how easily it is to be freed from past limitations through the gentle guidance of a trusted teacher.