A Fistful of Karma
Ever wondered how it might feel to drop out for a week in nature, detox, do some yoga and get spiritual?
After all you deserve it… Welcome to Il Santuario – Our motto is “It’s not what you want, it’s what your soul needs.”
An award-winning film, with 13 festival wins to date and counting – including three for Best Comedy, two for Best Narrative Feature, Best Screenplay and Audience Choice.
A Fistful of Karma
An outrageous roller-coaster of a comedy mockumentary set in the world of spiritual seeking and yoga retreats, in the tradition of What we do in the Shadows and Best in Show.
Based on the true story of our own retreat centre in rural Tuscany.
The Retreat centre is on its last legs. The team is falling to pieces. When Malcolm Schwartzman, inspirational guru, arrives with his entourage of dysfunctional and entitled spiritual casualties, it looks like this is the week that might just save the place from collapse – after all what can possibly go wrong on a vegan yoga retreat?
Il Santuario nestles in the Tuscan hills. Run and staffed by a group of misfits and burned out ravers, it hosts groups seeking spiritual growth, detox and escape from everyday reality.
Val and Xena, the owners, have already run many retreats and seen the whole emotional spectrum from breakdowns, through week-long romances to right out insanity. But nothing could have prepared them and their motley crew for the most nightmarish week of their lives – with a group that’s falling to pieces, war with the local village, experimental hallucinogens and naturally, a visiting psychopath.
All this is being carefully observed (and recorded) by a documentary crew, whose eyes and ears are everywhere. Literally, everywhere…
Production
The film was shot in Tuscany and Umbria at the 600 year old village fortress and retreat centre, where the events portrayed in the story actually happened.
Featuring a very diverse international cast and crew, which included established actors, yogis, visual artists, motorcycle riders and wrenchers and a house band, all of whom ate, slept and worked together and drank quite a lot of wine.
Cast
Adrian Bouchet as VAL - a man of few words and prone to dangerous and unwise decisions.
Dan Hildebrand as CRISPY – Ridiculously cheerful, he uses his various addictions and his crazed life in Tuscany to avoid introspection
Emily Lamey as IG - Incredibly bright, and polyamorous, with an evil sense of humour
Oliver Tobias as MALCOLM - Controlling, deeply insecure, a charlatan who really knows how to talk the talk
Stephanie Siadatan as XENA - carries the weight of the world on her shoulders, the fixer.
An outrageous roller-coaster of a comedy mockumentary set in the world of spiritual seeking and yoga retreats, in the tradition of What we do in the Shadows and Best in Show.
Based on the true story of our own retreat centre in rural Tuscany.
The Retreat centre is on its last legs. The team is falling to pieces. When Malcolm Schwartzman, inspirational guru, arrives with his entourage of dysfunctional and entitled spiritual casualties, it looks like this is the week that might just save the place from collapse – after all what can possibly go wrong on a vegan yoga retreat?
Il Santuario nestles in the Tuscan hills. Run and staffed by a group of misfits and burned out ravers, it hosts groups seeking spiritual growth, detox and escape from everyday reality.
Val and Xena, the owners, have already run many retreats and seen the whole emotional spectrum from breakdowns, through week-long romances to right out insanity. But nothing could have prepared them and their motley crew for the most nightmarish week of their lives – with a group that’s falling to pieces, war with the local village, experimental hallucinogens and naturally, a visiting psychopath.
All this is being carefully observed (and recorded) by a documentary crew, whose eyes and ears are everywhere. Literally, everywhere…
Production
The film was shot in Tuscany and Umbria at the 600 year old village fortress and retreat centre, where the events portrayed in the story actually happened.
Featuring a very diverse international cast and crew, which included established actors, yogis, visual artists, motorcycle riders and wrenchers and a house band, all of whom ate, slept and worked together and drank quite a lot of wine.
Cast
Adrian Bouchet as VAL - a man of few words and prone to dangerous and unwise decisions.
Dan Hildebrand as CRISPY – Ridiculously cheerful, he uses his various addictions and his crazed life in Tuscany to avoid introspection
Emily Lamey as IG - Incredibly bright, and polyamorous, with an evil sense of humour
Oliver Tobias as MALCOLM - Controlling, deeply insecure, a charlatan who really knows how to talk the talk
Stephanie Siadatan as XENA - carries the weight of the world on her shoulders, the fixer.