#Flower child newport beach movie

вЂњThey took a lot,вЂќ Kirkley said, and Griggs ran for miles in the middle of the night to tell his wife and high-school sweetheart, Carol, how much he loved her and that LSD was the antidote to hate and war. Griggs was a tough-guy malcontent from Anaheim who вЂњsaw GodвЂќ the first time he took LSD in 1963.ДЄfter stealing the drug from a Hollywood producer at gunpoint, Griggs and his buddy drove back to OC, popping pills along the way. John Griggs founded the Brotherhood of Eternal Love in 1965 and was decreed by avid LSD-advocate and defrocked Harvard professor Timothy Leary as his spiritual guru. What better way to show that than to explore this love story, which makes for a better drug-smuggling tale?вЂќ

Every other story IвЂ™ve read about the Brotherhood is an account from people not as intimately connected to John as Carol was. вЂњThey never told their story before,вЂќ said Kirkley. A piratesвЂ™ tale swaddled in intimate love and spiritual enlightenment, the film lends itself to mass appeal and larger distribution, which is in the works, said Kirkley, a commercial director in New York City.Дuring the seven years of filming his first take, Kirkley diligently pursued a hunch that the real story lay with Carol Griggs, the under-the-radar widow of the man who made the Brotherhood happen, John Griggs. Photo by Rich Schaeffer.Д«ecause of that, the film runs like a feature, he said, rather than an historical account of what was a major LSD-making and marijuana and hashish smuggling operation in Laguna Beach.

Actress Francesca Galassi plays Carol Randall in the documentary вЂњOrange SunshineвЂќ at Newport Beach Film Festival.

#Flower child newport beach movie

Nearly 30 percent of the movie is scripted re-enactments, Kirkley said in an interview this week, since drug smugglers are notoriously camera-shy and little archival material is available. Many of the real people the film is based on are expected to gather for a Brotherhood reunion at both screenings.

The documentary, вЂњ Orange Sunshine, the True Story of Friends, Family and One Hundred Million Hits of Acid,вЂќ opens at the Newport Beach Film Festival, April 23 and 26. Filmmaker William Kirkley on set of a re-created LSD making drug-lab with Matt Costa, who also composed the soundtrack for вЂњOrange SunshineвЂќ. There was more to the story than world peace on LSD. It took him another three years to capture the twist of fate that underpinned the BrotherhoodsвЂ™ nearly 20-year outlaw movement for cultural change.