How I Learned to Breathe Thru the Apocalypse

A surreal, hallucinatory series is set entirely inside the writer/performer’s mind during a 30-day silent Buddhist retreat in the woods of British Columbia in December 2005. With the U.S. drifting toward fascism and climate collapse, Hellegers decides to unplug, confront their monkey mind, and try to wake up to reality. Outwardly appearing to meditate, they give dharma talks to their followers and mentally time travel –to the 1960s growing up Catholic amid the Vietnam War, and to the 1940s to witness their father's childhood flight from the Nazis. An unlikely Catholic-Buddhist interfaith dialogue, the series takes on white saviorism, clerical sexual abuse and the impacts of the Military Industrial Complex. Whipsawing between comedy and tragedy, with animation, ads, and snippets of sitcoms and classic films alongside documentary footage,  it makes a compelling case for the power of meditation, art – and comedy – as indispensable tools of anti-fascist resistance and planetary survival.