Link to Purchase Tickets: https://www.academymuseum.org/en/programs/detail/koyaanisqatsi-019475d1-c9f3-ad38-69b2-b9356b9d0a24

Shot between 1975 and 1982, this visually poetic documentary showcases the beauty of nature while examining modern urban life. The juxtaposition of images demonstrates the effects of industrialization on the environment and humanity’s drift from nature. Composer Philip Glass aptly balances invoking a feeling of doom with a simultaneous sense of wonder and fascination in one of his earliest feature film scores. Borrowed from the Hopi language, Koyaanisqatsi translates to “chaotic life” or “life out of balance,” and appears in connection with a Hopi prophecy that warns of future catastrophe if we only take from nature’s resources instead of protecting them.

Academy Museum film programming generously funded by the Richard Roth Foundation.

1982 | 86 min | USA | Color | English | Not rated | 35mm

DIRECTED BY: Godfrey Reggio

WRITTEN BY: Ron Fricke, Godfrey Reggio, Michael Hoenig, Alton Walpole.