The Witness Screening in Portland May 17th, by Food Fight!

Contact: Chad Miller, Food Fight! Grocery

503-233-3910 / [email protected]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Screening of Award-winning Film, "The Witness"

"The Witness" highlights the dramatic and inspiring personal

transformation of a

tough Brooklyn construction contractor whose heart is opened by the

love of a kitten.

Thursday, 05/17/07, 7pm and 8:30pm

Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton Street, Portland, OR

$6 admission goes to Lighthouse Farm Sanctuary

Sponsored by: Food Fight! Grocery, Herbivore Magazine, Veganopolis,

Blossoming Lotus,

SweetPea Baking, Dave’s Killer Bread, Scapegoat Tattoo, Progressive

Counseling, Veggielicious

Portland, Oregon — "The Witness", a 43-minute film that has won six

“Best Documentary” awards at film festivals across America will

screen for one night only at Clinton Street Theater in Portland, OR.

"The Witness" tells the inspiring story of Eddie Lama, a tough

construction contractor from Brooklyn whose chance encounter with a

kitten completely transforms his life. Pulitzer Prize-winning

columnist of the Los Angeles Times, Howard Rosenberg, said: “The

Witness is one man’s truth that cries out for mass exposure… may be

the most important film about animals ever made.”

Lama's remarkable change in consciousness, from loathing animals to

devoting his life to their protection, seems to be contagious. “I

feel as though I have been walking around with a bag over my head,

and my heart,” said one viewer in Albany, NY. “The difference those

43 minutes made in my perceptions are earthshaking for me.”

The film has received extraordinary support from everyday people, who

have thus far organized several hundred community screenings in

almost every U.S. state, in venues ranging from libraries and

churches to college campuses and movie theatres, often with theatre

owners donating the space for the events. The documentary has also

been broadcast on independent film showcases of several regional PBS

stations.

For his groundbreaking street level education work, Eddie Lama was

honored with the Peace Abbey’s Courage of Conscience Award. Past

honorees have included Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama. "In my

lifetime,” said Lama as he accepted the award, “I have been both the

oppressor and the oppressed, both the fomenter of discord and the

advocate for peace, both the perpetrator and the victim. But most

significantly, I have been both the silence and the voice. It is the

human voice that is the primary tool for change.”

“The Witness touches something very deep in audience members,” says

producer LaVeck, “because it shows how any person, from any

background, can change. Eddie Lama is living proof of something that

we all hope and pray is true, that one person’s change of heart can

change the world.” LaVeck and the film’s director, Jenny Stein,

founded their non-profit production company Tribe of Heart, to fill

an unmet need for films that explore the human potential to respond

to injustice with creativity and non-violence. Tribe of Heart’s

second film, Peaceable Kingdom, is currently on the film festival

circuit and recently won a festival award for “enriching the human

spirit through film.”

An advance copy of the film is available to members of the media upon

request. Phone interviews with the filmmakers and/or any of the

film’s subjects can be arranged by contacting Tribe of Heart directly

at (607) 275-0806 or [email protected]. For stills, post-

screening audience interviews, and a trailer, visit

www.tribeofheart.org/press.htm

For more information about The Witness, visit: http://

www.tribeofheart.org

For more information about Eddie Lama, visit http://

www.oasissanctuary.org

For more information about Lighthouse Farm Sanctuary, visit http://

www.lighthousefarmsanctuary.org