PRESS RELEASE

ILLUMINATE Kicks Off Membership Program
with sneak preview of Warner Brothers’ COLLATERAL BEAUTY

Sedona, Arizona – November 10, 2016 – Warner Brothers has tapped Sedona’s Illuminate Film Festival to host a sneak preview of the upcoming major motion picture release Collateral Beauty starring Will Smith, Keira Knightley, Edward Norton, and Oscar winners Helen Mirren and Kate Winslet. This is a major coup for the four-year old festival whose focus is to promote films that elevate and inspire in the areas of mind, body and spirit.

Illuminate’s Executive Director, Danette Wolpert, predicted three years ago when she founded the festival that mind-body-spirit-inclined audiences would be recognized as a viable and powerful market for the mainstream movie industry within five years. “Whichever Hollywood studio wakes up to that possibility first will capitalize on this growing sector of the market, and will also lay claim to a massive positive shift in consciousness,” projected Wolpert.

After only three years, her vision is proving to be true with Warner Brothers rolling out this distinctively ‘conscious’ movie amidst their star-studded 2016 slate, and by programming its Sneak Preview with Illuminate Film Festival in Sedona. “This is an incredibly special honor for Illuminate and Sedona,” said Wolpert, “as studios typically concentrate these events in major cities like New York and LA. But Warner Brothers recognizes that Sedona is emerging as a national hub for conscious film and a vortex for word-of-mouth buzz in the global conscious community.”

The film, directed by Oscar-winning David Frankel (“Dear Diary,” “The Devil Wear Prada”) and written by Allen Loeb, explores deeply spiritual themes and timeless questions that will resonate with seekers from all walks of life. The meaning of life, love, death, and the illusions of time are all interwoven in a poetic way to enhance the beauty that is present in every moment of existence.

In the film, a successful New York ad executive suffers a personal tragedy and retreats from life, his friends devise a drastic plan to reach him before he loses everything. Pushing him to the very edge, they force him to confront the truth in surprising and profoundly human ways. This thought-provoking drama explores how even the deepest loss can reveal moments of beauty, and how the constants of love, time and death interlock in a life fully lived.

Illuminate is launching its new membership program around this auspicious event that will include the film showing on December 1st at 6:30pm at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre and an exclusive VIP Holiday Soiree at Reds Restaurant in the Sedona Rouge Hotel and Spa.

The membership campaign will launch on November 16th and members who sign up by November 23rd will receive a free ticket to the Collateral Beauty screening and private soiree (on a first-come, first-served basis pending availability).

Membership at $75 per year will provide special benefits including an invitation to an exclusive member event during Illuminate’s annual festival in May, discounted tickets to year-round events, an advanced ticket purchase period for the festival, discounts on festival All-Access passes and a subscription to the Illuminate e-newsletter.

The 2017 annual Illuminate Film Festival will take place May 31- June 4, 2017. More information and membership purchase is available at illuminatefilmfestival.com/membership.

Contact: Carol Kahn (336) 339-4709

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