Godfrey Reggio
Bio
Godfrey Reggio is a world renowned pioneer of a film style that creates poetic images of extraordinary emotional impact for audiences worldwide. Reggio revered by his peers in the film world for his QATSI trilogy, essays of visual images and sound that chronicle the destructive impact of the modern world on the environment. He states, “So to hope to be able to have peace, to be able to have justice and environmental balance, are consequences of our behavior, not just our intentions.”
Reggio, who spent 14 years in silence and prayer while studying to be a monk, has a history of service not only to the environment but to youth street gangs, the poor, and the community as well.
Reggio has been involved in many progressive political causes Young Citizens for Action, a community organization project that aided juvenile street gangs. Following this, Reggio co-founded La Clinica de la Gente, a facility that provided medical care to 12,000 community members in Santa Fe, and La Gente, a community-organizing project in Northern New Mexico's barrios.
Koyaanisqatsi, Hopi word meaning “life out of balance,” presented by Francis Ford Coppola was Reggio's debut as a film director, and the first film of the QATSI trilogy. The film is an apocalyptic vision of the collision of two different worlds - urban life and technology versus the environment. The musical score was composed by renowned composer Phillip Glass.
Powaqqatsi, meaning "life in transformation," Reggio's second film presented by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, conveys a humanist philosophy about the earth, the encroachment of technology on nature and ancient cultures, and the splendor that disappears as a result.
Naqoyqatsi, meaning "life as war." the final Qatsi trilogy a Miramax Film presented by Steven Soderbergh uses archive footage and stock images manipulated and processed digitally intercut with specially-produced computer generated imagery to demonstrate society's transition from a natural environment to a technology-based one.
Bulgari, the Italian jewelry company hired Reggio to direct Anima Mundi, a 28-minute montage of intimate images of over seventy animal species that celebrates the magnificence and variety of the world's fauna.
The Benetton Company invited Reggio to develop a new school of exploration and production in the arts, technology, and mass media called Abrica - Future, Presente, it opened in Treviso, Italy, just outside Venice.
In 2013 Reggio created Visitors – presented by Steven Soderbergh, Visitors reveals humanity’s trancelike relationship with technology, which, when commandeered by extreme emotional states, produces massive effects far beyond the human species.
In 2017 he is working on a new 3D children's film with Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore.
Reggio has been honored by numerous awards for his filmmaking achievements. In 2014 he was recognized by the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City with a full career retrospective entitled Life with Technology: The Cinema of Godfrey Reggio. He resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and is a frequent lecturer on philosophy, technology, and film.