Alice Coltrane built a sonic sanctuary in the California hills—wanna visit?
In the spring of 2017, film-makers Vincent Moon and Priscilla Telmon were invited to make a contemporaneous portrait of The Sai Anantam Ashram, the multi-ethnic and multi-generational spiritual community founded in 1983 by Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda, which included speaking with some of the community's elders, as well as Alice's sister, singer Marilyn McLeod.
Cinematography
Moon's wandering camera finds poetry in ordinary moments
Sound
Ashram's devotional music—trance-inducing and transformative
Director
Vincent Moon
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Alice Coltrane's ashram represented a rare documented space where Black spiritual innovation and Hindu devotional practice merged, creating sanctuary during Reagan-era California.
Director Vincent Moon pioneered 'haptic cinema'—shooting handheld, often alone, prioritizing sensory immersion over information. This approach has divided critics who find it either transcendent or frustratingly vague.
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