How Long Is “The Workshop”?

A filmmaker joins a group of people seeing enlightenment in an unconventional manner in this documentary. Jamie Morgan is a director living in London who has decided he's unhappy with his life. Looking for new experiences and a fresh spiritual path, Morgan travels to California, where he attends a ten-day workshop being led by one Paul Lowe. Lowe's program focuses on the multiple layers of human personality, and his means of challenging one's assumptions about such things includes meditation, group sex, and possible contact with alien visitors. Morgan brought a digital video camera along to record his experiences with Lowe, and in The Workshop we follow Morgan and his fellow seekers as they physically, emotionally and spiritually upend themselves in search of a new life, even if they're sometimes wary of Lowe's notions and techniques. The film also includes a postscript in which Morgan explores the impact Lowe's program had on the lives of the participants. The Workshop was screened in competition at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.