PORT TOWNSEND — A Chimacum High School graduate who screened his first cinematic effort at the 2011 Port Townsend Film Festival is in Nepal filming a story about acupuncture and alternative medicine.
Tristan Stoch filmed “Clarity” around Port Townsend in January.
The film told the story of a young man who had gone missing and an old friend’s effort to track him down. The 30-minute film drew standing-room-only audiences at all its screenings.
Broaden horizons
That inspired Stoch to broaden his horizons, according to Janette Force, festival executive director.
“Tristan is the poster child for everything we are all about: a small community that hosts a world-class film festival,” Force said.
“He was so inspired about telling the story to an audience that he decided he needed to broaden his scope, and we should all be inspired about how he is using his talent as a filmmaker to tell an important story.”
Filming acupuncture clinic
Stoch, 21, is now in a Buddhist monastery filming a health clinic run by the Acupuncture Relief Project, or ARP.
ARP is a free community acupuncture clinic that travels to countries that have been impacted by poverty, conflict or disaster, according to the group’s website, www.acupuncturereliefproject.org.
Its primary clinic is located in Chapagaon, Nepal.
In a letter to Force, Stoch said he wanted to show the potential ARP’s model has for primary care in the Third World, to expose caregivers from the health care community to the work that ARP is doing in Nepal and to attract future volunteers and expand ARP’s work to the rest of the Third World.
“What really interests me as a filmmaker about the ARP clinic is the story of humans connecting and learning across cultures, languages and borders,” Stoch wrote.
Stoch is financing the movie through KickStart, an online service used by nonprofits to raise funds for their projects.
Collecting pledges
There are seven pledge levels from $1 to $500, with various incentives from a credit on the final film to a home-cooked meal for two prepared and served by Stoch (though only in the Portland, Ore., area).
The $6,091 KickStart goal represents about half of what is needed to finance the film, Stoch said.
“The project’s exposure is based on the number of people who donate,” Stoch wrote. “In this case, the donation of a single dollar can have more meaning than just the dollar’s monetary value.”
As of Friday, 111 donors had pledged $5,023, according to the website at http://tinyurl.com/cwbtkg8.
If he does not raise the total amount by Dec. 17, no money will be collected from the pledged donors.
Stoch said the pledged money will help cover his medical, insurance and equipment expenses in Nepal and allow him to edit the expected 100 hours of footage into a 20- to 30-minute film.
More information is available at the donation website, http://tinyurl.com/cwbtkg8.
Anyone with questions about the project can email Stoch directly at tristanstoch@gmail.com.
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
