Like everyone else in this outfit, multitasking is something I’ve been required to do for a long time.  The level of multitasking I'm talking about started when I jumped into a new career in my early sixties.   My so-called new career remains on-going, ambitious, exhausting and time-consuming.  It seems that out of necessity, I've created a multi-headed dragon to assist me on my long last journey.  For more than ten years, I’ve been writing, directing and producing multiple projects all at the same time.  Although, as a filmmaker, I've managed to gain some rave reviews, gather a few awards, as well as traction, in a very competitive field full of twenty-somethings.  

However, things are changing as quickly as I can turn my daily grand this life of mine into a new single direction.  I am currently in the process of setting all remaining projects aside (for the time being) and/or delegating the work to be done on film projects currently in post-production (such as "Promise of You"), to a strong team of seven inspired people that I’ve fortunately been able to attract around me. 

My focus is swinging back to Southeast Asia (SEA) and my one paramount goal, "Reviving the Rice Mother."  I am moving into a time of single tasking (unitasking ?).  If I had a T-shirt with a statement on the front it would say, “Don’t bother me.  I’m monotasking.”  The time is ripe for change.

The seed of this challenging project was planted by my associate, Benjamas Siripatra, Deputy Secretary General, with the Thailand-based Local Development Institute, back in 2013.  Over time, I developed the project into a web-based series of mini-documentaries called The Search for Mae Posop.  When the idea was passed by the Sundance Documentary Fund, the Ford Foundation’s JustFilms initiative, and other potential funders, they all advised that the project’s mission* was of interest to them and that I should send them a work sample as soon as available.

*To enhance the effectiveness of NGOs and community development programs for rural rice farmers throughout the ten ASEAN nations of Southeast Asia.

The SEA project’s current status is optimistic and charging forward.  I’ve been able to produce a prize-winning documentary work sample called Reviving the Rice Mother that recently won rave reviews and a standing ovation at the Scary Cow Film Festival in San Francisco.

I've learned that the essence of the Rice Mother, Mae Posop, the Rice Goddess philosophy, involves that growing rice is the ideal form of human labor, reflecting a well-ordered, moral society.

Please revisit us again: this on-going story (the work 'blog' just doesn't do the story justice).

Stay tuned and be amazed.