HBO Max Orders Four-Part Docuseries BREATH OF FIRE Based On Vanity Fair Feature Spotlighting Kundalini Yoga

HBO Max has ordered the four-part limited documentary series, Breath of Fire from Vanity Fair Studios and SecondNature, which builds on a recent exclusive feature from Vanity Fair about Guru Jagat, a star of the Kundalini yoga practice and controversial founder of the RA MA Institute.

Her death this summer at the age of 41 brought a sudden end to her ever-expanding wellness empire, which had many celebrity followers and loyal disciples. The series explores the culture of modern spirituality through the rise of Kundalini yoga in the west, from its origins with Yogi Bhajan in the 1960s to its presence in millennial wellness circles today.

Breath of Fire is directed by Hayley Pappas and Smiley Stevens, executive produced by SecondNature's Matt Ippolito and Vanity Fair Studios' Helen Estabrook, Sarah Amos, and Lexy Altman at Condé Nast Entertainment. Vanity Fair journalist Hayley Phelan is a co-EP.

SecondNature is a production company founded by Hayley Pappas, Matt Ippolito and Smiley Stevens that develops and produces premium content. Together the team has produced some 30+ award-winning documentaries, including four Oscar-nominated short documentaries. Their work has premiered at Sundance, Cannes, and Tribeca among others and has been distributed with partners from HBO, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and POV. Their recent titles include "Flee" (Sundance/NEON), "AKA Jane Roe" (FX/Hulu), and Oscar nominee "Hunger Ward" (MTV). They are currently in production on one series and two feature documentaries, one of which is slated to premiere on Netflix in 2022. SecondNature makes original and commissioned content across formats and platforms with a diverse set of partners.

Vanity Fair Studios, run by Condé Nast Entertainment (CNE) president Agnes Chu, is the film and television arm of Vanity Fair, led by editor in chief Radhika Jones. Leveraging a century of culture-defining journalism from iconic brands The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, WIRED, Vogue, GQ, Architectural Digest and more, CNE, is an award-winning global film and television production company and a global digital network and studio. CNE influences audiences around the world with 70+ active feature film, documentary and TV projects in development and production, nearly 40 podcasts and publishes 4000+ original and live event programming across its global digital network annually. Since its inception in 2011, CNE has garnered 201 nominations and 127 wins, including Academy Awards, Golden Globe Awards, Primetime Emmy Awards, News & Documentary Emmy Awards, Webby Awards, and ASME Awards, among others.

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