FILMS
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TWO FILMS BY TOBIAS CHURTON IN
ONE TWO DVD PACKAGE
( RELEASED BY IAN ALLAN/ LEWIS MASONIC)
A MIGHTY
GOOD MAN: Elias Ashmole & the Initiation
A drama-documentary of the life of Elias Ashmole including a reconstruction
of the first personally recorded Free Masonic Initiation into a Lodge
anywhere in the world. Tobias Churton's riveting drama-documentary brings
the latest research into the genuine mystery of Masonic origins into exciting
and accessible form. Shot on location in the hidden places of the Staffordshire
Moorlands, the film features the first ever dramatic reconstruction of
17th century Masonic workings. Elias Ashmole's initiation is shown in
its entirety, including the hand-grip, Mason's word, signs and oaths taken
from the earliest known ritual records of Free Masonry. Atmospheric and
magical, the effect is like eavesdropping on the 17th century's most secret
world. Ashmole was also an astrologer and alchemist, believing himself
to be in possession of the secret of the Philosopher's Stone. This film
is both authoritative and imaginative, revealing England at its deepest
and most fascinatingly esoteric.
FAMA FRATERNITATIS: The True Story of the Rosicrucians
The Rosicrucians are a legendary esoteric Order first publicly documented
in the early 17th century. They are said to have the power to heal the
sick, work miracles and even possess the secret of immortality. Join us
on a journey of discovery into the secret world of magic, heresy and alchemy
to discover the true secrets of Rosicrusianism. As Tobias Churton takes
you in to the mysterious world of the Roscusicans , what were their aims
and teachings and what was the new heaven and a new earth that made them
so feared by the Christian church as to be tortured and sold into slavery
for their beliefs?
DVD is universal, it is not locked to a region, it will play anywhere.
REVIEW by Bruno Gazzo, Pietre Stones Review
of Freemasonry:
A MIGHTY GOOD MAN
Elias Ashmole and the Initiation
THE TRUE STORY OF
THE ROSICRUCIANS
Two films by Tobias Churton
Published by Lewis Masonic, 2007
Twin Film DVD Pack
Price, £19.99
Available from the publisher: Lewis Masonic
A drama-documentary of the life of Elias Ashmole including a reconstruction of the first personally recorded Free Masonic Initiation into a Lodge anywhere in the world. Tobias Churton's riveting drama-documentary brings the latest research into the genuine mystery of Masonic origins into exciting and accessible form. Shot on location in the hidden places of the Staffordshire Moorlands, the film features the first ever dramatic reconstruction of 17th century Masonic workings. Elias Ashmole’s initiation is shown in its entirety, including the hand-grip, Mason's word, signs and oaths taken from the earliest known ritual records of Free Masonry. Atmospheric and magical, the effect is like eavesdropping on the 17th century’s most secret world. Ashmole was also an astrologer and alchemist, believing himself to be in possession of the secret of the Philosopher’s Stone. This film is both authoritative and imaginative, revealing England at its deepest and most fascinatingly esoteric.
The Rosicrucians are a legendary esoteric Order first publicly documented in the early 17th century. They are said to have the power to heal the sick, work miracles and even possess the secret of immortality. A journey of discovery into the secret world of magic, heresy and alchemy to discover the true secrets of Rosicrusianism. As Tobias Churton takes you in to the mysterious world of the Rosicrucians, what were their aims and teachings and what was the new heaven and a new earth that made them so feared by the Christian church as to be tortured and sold into slavery for their beliefs?
Both DVDs are universal, they are not locked to a region, they will play anywhere.
These two films by Tobias Churton
are remarkable for their independence of vision, knowledge and film making
skill.
Bruno Gazzo
Editor, PS Review of Freemasonry.
REVIEWS IN FREEMASONRY TODAY magazine:
A MIGHTY GOOD MAN –
ELIAS ASHMOLE AND THE INITIATION
Written & Directed by Tobias Churton
Toby Churton’s latest film,
A Mighty Good Man, is a development of the material first presented in
Initiation (Dragon Films, 1996). In it, we follow Elias Ashmole, played
by Columba Powell, on his journey to his initiation into Freemasonry in
1646. Readers of this periodical should hardly need reminding that Ashmole’s
initiation is the first of which a written record is extant. Ashmole’s
ride, during a lull in the hostilities of the Civil War, traverses his
native Staffordshire and continues across the border in Cheshire. Along
the way we are treated to glimpses of the old ‘earth magic’
and rituals of the region, including the strange and haunting Horn Dance
at Abbots Bromley. The antlers used in this ritual, whose precise significance
are lost in the mists of time, are those reindeer and of great antiquity,
predating any record of the dance itself. Thus we accompany Ashmole through
time and space, from darkness ever onwards towards the light: the moment
of his rebirth as a brother among masons.
The ‘Dramatised Documentary’ style that Toby adopts for the
film will be familiar to television viewers, but here it is used far more
inventively than in the great bulk of broadcast material. Along the way,
the strange spiritual parallels to Ashmole’s physical progress are
hinted at visually, rather than distracting the viewer with plodding narration.
The use of captions allows us to contemplate some truly arresting images
without distraction - a technique that many makers of both drama and documentary
productions could learn from. Past and present are fused. Ashmole’s
journey is happening now as well as then, we are with him and he is with
us. There is far more than a history lesson here.
The climax of the drama is a recreation
of a seventeenth century Acception ceremony including the recital of the
Old Charges. The intimacy of these scenes is highly effective and the
use of largely amateur performers gives the proceedings an air of authenticity
that is absolute. The rendition of the ritual is not perfect but it is
unfeignedly sincere: little, it seems, has changed...
The film has obviously been produced on a very low budget but this in
no way detracts from its impact and in many ways adds to its charm. Toby
Churton has struggled, manfully, to cram a gallon of knowledge into a
pint pot of a production. It is infused with the scholar’s happiness
with his subject and the film maker’s joy at being able to communicate
that happiness to others. One gets the impression at some points that
the tape player must be running at fast forward, so densely are the images
and ideas layered - by the end, one is really reeling!
In fine, the movie is very like the man. Which man, Ashmole or Churton?
Both...
Andrew Montgomery
THE TRUE STORY OF THE ROSICRUCIANS
A film by Tobias Churton, DVD published by Ian Allan/ Lewis Masonic
As regular readers of Freemasonry
Today will know, our former editor, Tobias Churton, has long pursued extensive
research into the history of the Rosicrucian movement, its origins in
the early seventeenth century and the important men at its centre. He
has written two articles for Freemasonry Today (Issues 17 and 18) and
a book The Golden Builders (2005). He explains that the Rosicrucians never
existed as a chartered organised group rather, it was an idea. It was
idealism given a voice. It was idealism seeking practical expression.
It was also, as Churton notes, the ‘greatest publicity-stunt of
all time’.
Churton has now completed a two-part documentary film about the Rosicrucians
in which he has striven to cut away the mythology which has grown around
them and aims to understand and express what those men at the centre had
to say. In particular it reveals their passion and commitment for the
pursuit of truth; a pursuit which, in the early seventeenth century, was
a dangerous profession: Adam Haslmyer, ‘Rosicrucian’ and doctor,
supporter of that medical genius, Paracelsus - who had pioneered the benefits
of science to medicine - was sent to the papal galleys for five years
as a slave for his enthusiasm for ‘a new heaven and a new earth’.
His opponents preferred the old ones.
These ‘Rosicrucians’
were ahead of their time; their light burned brightly, but briefly, before
being driven into the shadows by the unholy alliance of Habsburg and Papacy
who, committed solely to power and control, led an onslaught before which
even truth had to retreat in order to fight another day.
Churton’s film explores and explains one of the major building blocks
of our modern culture, an idea which sought to bring idealism down to
earth; it is the story of men who strove to marry science and spirituality
in order to bring some of that divine perfection into a practical form
in order that all men might be free and live more fulfilling lives. It
was a truly noble aim. And it was essentially a simple aim. That figure
at the heart of the Rosicrucian ‘publicity-stunt’, Johann
Valentin Andreae held, as Churton explains, that the ideals were ‘best
expressed in love for one’s neighbour and an open-hearted and open-minded
response to new knowledge.’
Michael Baigent
YOU, ME AND YESTERDAY, the Musical by Tobias Churton and John Myatt about the love affair between NANCY CUNARD and HENRY CROWDER in the 1920s and 1930s was performed at the Lichfield Garrick Theatre in March 2011. The film was shot by Belinda Parsons and edited, produced and directed by Tobias Churton. The stage direction was by Beverley Dunne and Sue Hannam. A DVD is available.
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY TOBIAS CHURTON...
NO MAN HATH SEEN
GOD
Malone-Gill productions for Channel 4 TV, 1987, 26 mins.
Written, directed, presented and composed by Tobias Churton
DVD (currently unavailable)
Featuring TONY ANHOLT as Ralph Churton, with BRIAN BLESSED as the Poet’s
Voice; interviews with KATHLEEN RAINE, Professor David Hughes (Astronomer,
Sheffield University), members of the Church of England Doctrine Commission,
and the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, Robert Runcie.
Producer: Karla Ehrlich
Executive Producer: Michael Gill
Music arranged by Anthony Phillips
Editor: Graham Whitlock
Camera: David Scott & Belinda Parsons
THE ELECTION
A Spirit Level Production, 40 mins.
Produced & Directed by Tobias Churton
DVD (currently unavailable)
Filmed on Super 16mm during the mid-Staffordshire by-election, March 1990
in Lichfield with SCREAMING LORD SUTCH and the celebrated (English Madam)
CYNTHIA PAYNE. Also featuring interviews with Canon Tony Barnard, Mark
Shepherd (Cathedral Organist), John Lang (Dean of Lichfield), with sundry
appearances of political and media figures, a visiting Circus and members
of the Great British Public.
Asking the questions:
What has God to do with politics?
What has politics to do with ultimate reality?
Hermetic wisdom brought to bear on a phenomenon of the modern world.
Camera: David Scott & Belinda Parsons
Sound: Martien Coucke
Editing: TC & Sean Davison
THE NEW
AGE AND THE NEW MAN
A Spirit Level Production for Stichting Teleac, Utrecht, 1989, 60 mins.
Written & Directed by Tobias Churton
DVD (currently unavailable)
The story of the Rosicrucians, William Blake, Rudolf Steiner, and the
Lectorium Rosicrucianum.
Includes interviews with KATHLEEN RAINE, Christopher McIntosh, Carlos
Gilly, JOOST RITMAN, Yvonne Hawker, Robert Groves and Jeremy Cranswick.
Made in the months leading up to the collapse of the Berlin Wall and culminating
in a cinematic vision of the alchemical transformation of Europe.
Made with the cooperation of the BIBLIOTHECA PHILOSOPHICA HERMETICA (JR
Ritman Library), Amsterdam.
Producer: Steve Garvey
Executive Producer: Chris Sonnemans
Camera: David Scott
Sound: John Lundsten
Music: Anthony Phillips, TC, Mervyn ‘Spam’ Spence
Debussy’s La Cathedrale Engloutie performed by Mark Shepherd on
the organ of Lichfield Cathedral.
Narrator: TONY ANHOLT
INITIATION
A Dragon Films Production produced, written and directed by Tobias Churton
for video sell-through, 1996, 52 mins.
DVD (currently unavailable)
Staffordshire and Cheshire folklore meets the origins of Freemasonry in
the person of Elias Ashmole (1617-1692). Interviews with folklorist Doug
Pickford and Masonic historian Matthew Scanlan. Featuring THE ABBOTS BROMLEY
HORN DANCERS, with COLUMBA POWELL as Captain ELIAS ASHMOLE, and Alex Arrowsmith
as THE GREEN KNIGHT.
Executive Producer: Peter Maxwell-Jones
Camera: Don Young
Editor: Sean Davison
Music: John Myatt, TC, Count Michael Maier
Narrator: Roger Blake
ARTISTS R US – A new kind of arts series
Tobias Churton Productions, 2000
DVD (currently unavailable)
PROGRAMME ONE:
INGMAR CARLSSON
International ‘Space Artist’ Ingmar works with Air as a sculptural
medium. His work is fresh and intoxicating – but is he for real?
With Tobias Churton as Ingmar Carlsson; JAMES TREE as the Interviewer.
25 mins.
PROGRAMME TWO: COLUMBA POWELL
50 this year, Columba, son of the great British film producer-director
MICHAEL POWELL, jumps out of his infant celluloid image (PEEPING TOM)
with an eclectic exhibition of his paintings and an arousing interview.
19 mins.
PROGRAMME THREE: TOBIAS CHURTON
Film-maker and artist BELINDA PARSONS conducts a rare and and distinctly
revelatory interview (including clips) with poet, author (THE GNOSTICS),
musician and film-maker TOBIAS CHURTON. 56 mins.
Camera: TC (except Programme Three: Belinda Parsons)
Direction/Editing: TC.
BIOGRAPHICAL
ESPIONAGE
A Tobias Churton digital video production (2001), 26 mins.
DVD (currently unavailable)
A Voyage round Tobias Churton’s parents, his childhood, and the
1960s.
Camera/Editing/Direction: TC.
MOVIE SCRIPTS
THE GATECRASHERS
Tobias Churton & Columba Powell, 1995
Film Pioneer BASIL PANTAGRUEL meets SIMON MAGUS in the Victorine Studios,
Nice, in 1926 and travels back in time to film the Resurrection –
with cosmic consequences.
Written with the assistance of the EUROPEAN SCRIPT FUND and THELMA SCHOONMAKER-POWELL.
THE ANGEL CROFT
a comedy by Tobias Churton
Developers plan to demolish the Angel Croft Hotel, Lichfield, the last
resort of the social backbone of old Lichfield. But the old stalwarts
won’t stand for it and confront the modern world with a plan of
their own.
See also NEW PRODUCTIONS for information
about Tobias Churton’s latest movie script: THE
HORNS OF INTELLIGENCE.
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