Marcia Kimpton does everything! She is a director, producer, writer, actress, late night host, podcaster, mental health advocate, and champion of women filmmakers. with over 40+ awards for her films she is taking her skills on the road to create works that will hopefully teach the world about the unique places she travels to and give back to these communities through the profits. She has even started her own APP, Kimpton Travels and Films, to help people keep up with her adventures! Please read on to learn more!

Where are you based?
I am based between Lake Tahoe, California and Kailua, Hawaii.

What inspired you to immerse yourself in the world of travel?
I think I was born curious about other cultures. Once my family took me to Europe at 18 years old, the idea of seeing the world was truly one of my top goals because I am just so happy learning about new places. If I am honest, I get bored easily and I never get bored traveling.

Alongside the travel industry, you have dealt with the film industry creating the film Bardo Blues. Can you tell us more about the film and the inspiration behind it?
BARDO BLUES was my third film that I wrote, directed, produced and acted in, but it was my first film out of the country. I was inspired to write about the spiritual studies of Emanuel Swedenborg, a 17th century mystic and scientist who was trying to find out where our souls begin. I had also studied Buddhism, most specifically the book “Tibetan Book of the Dead”, and that is where I learned about the term “Bardo.” I wanted to understand where we go in the Bardo in both life and death, so I wrote a screenplay that is about a man looking for his mother in Thailand, only to find something very different than he expected in his travels. It was a spiritual mystery combined with a personal story about my relationship with my brother and his troubles with depression. I wrote it in the hopes of preventing his suicide, but no one can really prevent this, they can only try to help alleviate the suffering. My editor for Bardo Blues also took his own life after being so isolated during Covid. Both were so heartbreaking.

How do you balance storytelling with advocacy in your filmmaking process?
I either want to bring joy and laughter in my comedic movies, or they have to be about a story I care about if it's going to be a drama. I love all types of movies, but for me the movie has to have a purpose to expand the mind and hopefully help find solutions. With BARDO BLUES a portion of the profits go towards finding a cure to mental illness, which is a difficult goal because there are so many aspects to why the mind can get unhealthy. In my next movie TANZAN, a portion of the profits will go towards animal, land and tribal conservation in Africa because the story I wrote touches on all these aspects.

You also wrote a book called Escaping the Hollywood Bardo. What motivated you to write it, and what lessons do you hope readers take away?
I wrote the memoir to hopefully inspire female filmmakers to never give up on their dreams, but I also wrote it to make sense of my ups and downs in Hollywood. I found out by the end of writing the book that I was also writing it for me, to make sense of my life. Everyone’s life has challenges, but it's how we deal with these challenges that defines us. I have had a lot of tragic things happen in my life. It may be no more than others, but I thought if I found the humor and spiritual meaning behind what has happened then I could help someone in reading about my journey to find joy and peace. I didn’t always live in such happiness and it's still a daily practice to always find the gratefulness in the darkness, but I can say when I updated my book to the third edition this month that I have alchemized almost every difficult situation in my life and by doing it, I have found tremendous lightness in being.

Your new app Kimpton Travels and Films blends your love for travel and filmmaking. What inspired you to create it, and how do you hope it enriches users' travel and cultural experiences?
I have so many plans for my app, and the biggest one is to have a cool movie for each city and country you visit that will enrich your travel experience. Though, I am not there yet. Right now it lists my favorite movies because I spend so much time looking for good ones. I was inspired because friends would constantly ask me for recommendations. The travel was naturally included because of my love of travel, so basically I made an app of my hobbies, or shall I say that I felt knowledgeable enough to curate great travel and film lists. I hope it turns into my own streaming channel! That's the goal!

Congratulations on your new show Bright Lights Late Night. What can viewers expect from the show, and how does it complement the app?
BRIGHT LIGHTS LATE NIGHT is a dream I have had for many years after my late night show in San Francisco went off the air in 1998. This show combines my love of the arts with musicians, painters, chefs, fashion artists, wine makers, etc. at a party I created in Stellenbosch, South Africa, with interviews from all the different artists featured. My hope is to travel the world and feature boutique hotels and restaurants in each place I visit. If everything goes as planned, my next shows will be from Amsterdam, Netherlands and Paro, Bhutan.

Kimpton’s Kosmos Retreats offer an impressive blend of wellness and adventure. What inspired you to start these retreats, and what do you hope participants gain from the experience?
Kimpton’s Kosmos retreats are starting small in Hawaii and Lake Tahoe, but my hope is to curate a trip of wellness and adventure April 2026 in Bhutan. In the beginning we will only have 8-12 people with beach or lake time, hikes, massage, yoga, acupuncture, organic food, and I hope to bring my perspective to finding peace and happiness in life into these small curated destination retreats.

What impact do you hope your combined efforts in filmmaking, writing, and travel will have on the communities and issues you are passionate about?
My hope is to have a portion of the profits of the films go back to the cause or community that is affected with the story we are telling, to help find a solution to the problem.

Can you tell us more about your partnership with One Mind? What inspired you to support this initiative?
20% of the profits of Bardo Blues will go to OneMind.org. It can be challenging to turn a profit as an independent filmmaker doing films without a major star, but once that happens we’ll donate a portion of the profits to One Mind. The goal as I grow my brand, and especially my app, is to make a profit on all films and hopefully change the paradigm of filmmaking — like Angels Studio did with SOUND OF FREEDOM. I do know with my future films we will find an organization or maybe few and give back with the profits I make.

What is Brain Health?
One Mind was started by Garen, Shari and Brandon Staglin who own the amazing Staglin vineyard in Napa Valley. Brandon, their son, was diagnosed with schizophrenia, like my brother Graham, and Brandon was able to channel his illness into this organization to find a cure to all different types of brain health issues. They termed this issue “brain health” to reverse the stigma around “mental illness.” They see it as a disease that needs healing both physically and spiritually. They have helped raise 546 million dollars towards research, among raising millions more in setting up mental health support and programs for people who are suffering. It’s truly remarkable what one family, with a serious crisis, has done to help many. They see brain health as a way of figuring out how to find health for the brain.

Can you tell us a bit about your own mental health/brain health journey?
I suffered for years with depression, not knowing my father and my brother would have the same debilitating disease. I medicated in college and until I was 32 years old, mostly with cannabis, not knowing it contributed to the depression because I did get some relief from it. When I quit altogether, I switched to my favorite wine, Chardonnay. I was able to quit smoking cannabis through my deep faith in God and going to hot yoga almost on a daily basis. Drinking wine has been a journey for me because I love it so much, but if I drink in moderation then I find I don't get depressed because for me it's definitely a chemical imbalance. I must exercise and eat well to keep balance. This summer to promote my new film AN AMERICAN ABROAD, I am going across America to small groups of women in their houses to show the film. I'll be asking them to bring their favorite wine and I'll bring my favorite healthy hydrogen water. I will talk about pursuing your dream, as I have with making my films, but most importantly I will talk about mental health and how yoga, meditation and drinking more great water helped me heal and find happiness. It's taken years, but I can say confidently that this is how I found my way out of depression.

What advice do you have to anyone struggling along their own path?
I think so many struggle for happiness and peace, so I would say don't give up, make small daily habit changes, and don’t beat yourself up if you break your goals. If you can pick up yoga and meditation then I believe the path to peace is easier. For some it's just hiking, biking, swimming and getting out in nature. I believe nature is God, so it's about finding that inner connection to your higher self which has all the solutions and all the ways to your personal path to peace. The hardest part for everyone, including myself, is stopping that voice in the mind and just hearing your higher self voice, which is the voice of the divine working with you for your greater good.

Are there any upcoming projects you would like to share?
My upcoming project is finding the finances and the cast for my African film called Tanzan, which is set to be filmed in Tanzania, South Africa and Namibia. As I mentioned this summer I am touring all of America, which will include the additional blog inputs to the app, along with movies. I will promote my film AN AMERICAN ABROAD, a romantic comedy about a woman who travels with her new younger boyfriend across the world as a travel reporter. I wrote, produced, directed and acted in this film, and I am super excited to share it. I am also promoting my retreats in Lake Tahoe, Hawaii in the fall of 2025 and Bhutan April 2026.

It has been a crazy past few years, how have you been staying positive?
I used to be a news junkie, watching the nightly news and reading the New York Times daily. Now I read nothing to the point that someone, like my daughter, will tell me there is an awful hurricane coming into Florida. When I turned off the news during the three months of being alone in Lanai, Hawaii during Covid, I found real peace of mind. I refuse to listen to any fear propaganda, and if I feel any fear (which is rare because of my deep faith in a higher power) then I sit down, I breathe and I ask for the fear to go away. The only thing I can change in this world is myself. The world is so crazy, and it might sound cliche but I love this quote: “You must become the peace you want to see in this world.”

If enough of us do it we will have peace because the light is way more powerful than the dark. Although, there seems to be a lot of darkness today. I have traveled to over 40 countries in the world and I have already been to 46 US states and I can tell you most individuals are really good people. They want the same things and they are doing their best to make this world a better place. That’s my focus, and if I get caught reading a headline or seeing the awful things happening right now in Hollywood, I stop myself and find an upbeat movie. Finding an upbeat film is so hard to do today, but my dream with my app is that you don’t have to spend hours looking past all the violence and darkness they're selling on many streaming platforms. My hope is you can go to my app to find good quality films that hopefully promote good messages. BARDO BLUES has darkness in the movie, but it serves a purpose in finding the light and those are the movies I want to promote and make. I want movies that make the world better.

What are some of your resolutions for the new year?
My New Year's resolution is to drink once per month, no sugar, and to be loving to myself and everyone around me even when it's difficult.

What is your motto in life?
My motto in life is to experience life to the fullest in every aspect and try to bring light everywhere I go.

To learn more about Marcia Kimpton please check out the links below:
Website: www.marciakimpton.com
APP: kimpton-travels-and-films
Instagram: marciakimpton
Facebook: marciakimptonfilms
X: marciakimpton

Team Credit:
Photography: Jonny Marlow
Hair/Makeup: Kurumi Schulz for MAC cosmetics
Styling: Anna Schilling

Marcia Kimpton Travels and Films