'Seeker' screened as part of Reykjavik International Film Festival

This year, the Reykjavik International Film festival took place from 28 September to 8 October. Among the films shown was Seeker - a short documentary about Snatak Matthiasson, a student of Sri Chinmoy from Iceland since 1985.

Trailer for Seeker

For many years, Snatak was one of the fastest runners in the Centre, as well as being an exceptionally good singer and pianist. In 2004, Snatak was diagnosed with ALS; over the years he has lost much of the capacity of his upper body, but it has not deterred him from living spiritual life to the best of his ability. 

In 2011, Snatak had the inspiration to form a singing group dedicated to singing Sri Chinmoy’s songs in their pure acapella form. The group would go to places of worship of different religions all around the world, to underscore the underlying unity behind all religions. Thus, many of Snatak’s friends from all around the world came together, and the Oneness-Dream singing group was born. The group had their initial concert tour in Iceland, and over the years have toured churches, temples and spiritual places in Finland, Myanmar, Ireland, Scotland and California.

Earlier this year, the group went to the Italian region of Tuscany to sing in the churches and cathedrals there. As you can see from the below slideshow, the group has attained quite a high standard of technical excellence.

Along with the group came Sanjay Rawal, a documentary maker who has worked on award-winning documentaries such as Food Chains (2015), as well as a 2011 documentary on Sri Chinmoy’s weightlifting titled Challenging Impossibility. As a result, a 9-minute documentary titled Seeker was made, which had its first viewing at the Reykjavik Film festival.

Snatak was getting medical treatment in South Korea for much of the festival, but he was able to make it home in time for the last screening of the documentary, and afterwards answered questions for the audience as part of the Q&A session after the film.

Many of the members of Oneness-Dream came to Reykjavik; the day after they held a concert in Frikirkjan, a well known church in the centre of Reykjavik. 

The concert was also used to launch an album, containing recordings from the Italian tour (some of which you can hear in the above slideshow).

“Soulful music is the music that wants to eventually transform our consciousness. It carries us into the Universal Consciousness and makes us feel that we are in tune with the highest, with the deepest, with the farthest.”

– Sri Chinmoy [1]

Related

• Video of Frikirkjan concert on Sri Chinmoy TV