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Sunseed: The Journey

In the 1960s and 1970s, many teachers and gurus from the East were called to the West to share their approaches to theology and timeless traditions of meditation, yoga, and spiritual understanding. It was the dawning of a new consciousness. What resulted was an awakening and a transcendent movement that is still rocking the culture today.
Narrated by Peter Coyote. Featuring Ram Dass, Murshid Samuel Lewis, Pir Vilayat Khan, Swami Satchidananda, Swami Muktananda, Roshi Shunryu Suzuki, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, Lama Anagarika Govinda, Yogi Bhajan, Maharaji Virsa Singh, Stephen Gaskin, Hilda Charlton, Vocha Fiske, Joe Miller, Gavin Arthur, Maharaji Neem Karoli, and Sri Brim Dass, with personal comments from the director.

  • Amertat Cohn
    Director
    Director, ACT NOW, SUNSEED, Eliot Porter's World, Sister, Zen in America
  • Amertat Fredrick Cohn
    Writer
    ACT NOW, SUNSEED, Krishnamurti, Wynn Bullock Photographer
  • Amertat Fredrick Cohn
    Producer
    Eliot Porter's World, Dance to Glory, Zen in America
  • Robert Frank
    Director of Photography
    Pull My Daisy, Rolling Stones: Plundered My Soul
  • David MacMillan
    Sound
    Pull My Daisy, Rolling Stones: Plundered My Soul
  • Peter Coyote
    Key Cast
    "Narrator"
    E.T., Erin Brockovich, Patch Adams
  • Ram Dass
    Key Cast
    "Baba Ram Dass"
    Becoming Nobody, Fierce Grace
  • Samuel Lewis
    Key Cast
    "Sufi Sam"
    Dance to Glory
  • Vilayat Inayat Khan
    Key Cast
    "Pir Vilayat "
  • Lama Govinda
    Key Cast
    "Lama Govinda"
  • Suzuki Roshi
    Key Cast
    "Roshi Suzuki"
  • Swami Satchidananda
    Key Cast
    "Swami Satchidananda"
  • Yogi Bhajan
    Key Cast
    "Yogi Bhajan"
  • Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach
    Key Cast
    "Singing Rabbi"
  • Swami Muktananda
    Key Cast
    "Swami Muktananda"
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Feature
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 22 minutes 54 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    January 6, 2020
  • Production Budget:
    600,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    India, Israel, Nepal, United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    16mm
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Distribution Information
  • Sharecroppers Media, (323) 733-1000 Omar Kaczmarczyk <omarkaczmarczyk@gmail.com>
    Sales Agent
    Country: Worldwide
Director Biography - Amertat Cohn

Amertat Cohn (born Fredrick Jack Cohn, October 31, 1943, Denver, Colorado) is an award-winning American filmmaker, a businessman, a spiritual leader, and producer-director of Sunseed The Journey. Frederick began his career in visual media at 15 as photo instructor at a summer camp and then photo editor and photographer in high school. He graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, in 1965. While there, his photo art was exhibited at the Davidson Art Gallery, and he made his first film as part of its film studies program. He entered the Masters Film program at UCLA in 1965 but moved to San Francisco the next year during the "summer of love." There he began a lifelong study of meditation, yoga, mystic arts, Sufism, and the esoteric traditions of the world’s religions, all while working in the top documentary film unit in the USA at KQED Public Television. There he made several films including A.C.T. Now (1968) which received a Cine Golden Eagle award for direction. In 1969 he started working on a feature documentary, Sunseed. He received a Master of Fine Arts from UCLA Film School in1973 for his direction of Sunseed. Its first showing was at the Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco in 1974 and later had its New York premiere at the Whitney Museum in New York City, in the New American Filmmakers series, where it became the most viewed film in the history of the series.

He took on the name Amertat, which was given to him by one of his spiritual guides, Pir Vilayat Khan, while making the film. In 1988 Amertat made the film Elliott Porter’s World which brought him his second Cine Golden Eagle award.

After twenty years of filmmaking Amertat was forced to search for other ways to support his family and went into “retirement” from his film activities. Over the next few years, he was able to create a successful international distributorship and marketing company for Herbalife Nutrition (1988-present) and has become one of its top 50 independent distributors in the world as a Chairman’s Club member. He has lived in the USA, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, India, and now resides in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, since 2006. He also maintains a residence in New York City. He has now come out of “retirement” and is proud to have completed his new feature film, Sunseed: The Journey

Filmography:

SunSeed: The Journey
Wynn Bullock Photographer (1978)
Dance to Glory (1977)
Zen in America (1977)
Sister (1976)
Elliott Porter’s World (1975)
Sunseed (1973)
Act Now (1968)
From Protest to Resistance, (1967)
Fidel (1967)
J. Krishnamurti, The Real Revolution—8 episodes (1966)

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Director Statement

Documentary movie making can be more than capturing a moment in time or celebrating a personality. At its best the movie can be a transforming experience, not just on the first viewing, but creating a hunger to come back again and again to understand more, experience more. Then if the movie can inspire us to go out in life and take action to help ourselves and others, this is what I would call a success.