Rev. Danny Fisher

The New York Observer has a slight but informative piece about the New York City premiere of film festival sensation Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country and the film’s distributor Oscilloscope Laboratories, which is headed up by Beastie Boy and Tibet activist Adam Yauch.

The Beastie Boys were the organizers of the immensely popular and influential Tibetan Freedom Concerts, and some of their Buddhist-inspired songs appear in Gary Gach’s absolutely wonderful anthology What Book?!: Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop. Yauch, who identifies as a Buddhist, is married to Dechen Wangdu, who was active in Students for a Free Tibet. His Buddhist faith has been the subject of substantial articles in both Tricycle: The Buddhist Review and Interview. Though active mostly in film distribution, Yauch directs as well: he helmed the experimental Beastie Boys concert film Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That! (2006) under the pseudonym Nathaniel Hörnblowér. For a sample of his work as both a filmmaker and a musician, take a look at this…

["Andres Ostergaard, Sara Bernstein and Adam Yauch." Photo by Getty Images.]