Godfrey Reggio

Powaqqatsi

Powaqqatsi

Five years after Godfrey Reggio stunned audiences with Koyaanisqatsi, he again joined forces with composer Philip Glass and other collaborators for a second chapter. Here, Reggio turns his sights on third-world nations in the Southern Hemisphere. Forgoing the sped-up aesthetic of the first film, Powaqqatsi employs a meditative slow motion in order to reveal the beauty of the traditional ways of life in those parts of the planet, and to show how cultures there are being eroded as their environments are taken over by industry. This is the most intensely spiritual segment of Reggio’s philosophical and visually remarkable Qatsi Trilogy.

Film Info

  • United States
  • 1988
  • 99 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.85:1
  • Spine #641

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Godfrey Reggio, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
  • Impact of Progress, an interview program with Reggio and composer Philip Glass on their collaboration
  • Inspiration and Ideas, a new interview with Reggio about his greatest influences and teachers
  • Public television interview with Reggio from 1989 about the trilogy
  • Anima Mundi (1992), Reggio’s twenty-eight-minute montage of footage of over seventy animal species, scored by Glass
  • Trailer

Available In

Collector's Set

The Qatsi Trilogy

The Qatsi Trilogy

Blu-ray Box Set

3 Discs

$63.96

Collector's Set

The Qatsi Trilogy

The Qatsi Trilogy

DVD Box Set

3 Discs

$63.96

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Godfrey Reggio, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
  • Impact of Progress, an interview program with Reggio and composer Philip Glass on their collaboration
  • Inspiration and Ideas, a new interview with Reggio about his greatest influences and teachers
  • Public television interview with Reggio from 1989 about the trilogy
  • Anima Mundi (1992), Reggio’s twenty-eight-minute montage of footage of over seventy animal species, scored by Glass
  • Trailer
Powaqqatsi
Credits
Presented by
Francis Ford Coppola
Presented by
George Lucas
Director
Godfrey Reggio
Music
Philip Glass
Produced by
Mel Lawrence
Produced by
Godfrey Reggio
Produced by
Lawrence Taub
Executive producer
Menahem Golan
Executive producer
Yoram Globus
Music produced by
Kurt Munkacsi
Music conducted by
Michael Riesman
Directors of photography
Graham Berry
Directors of photography
Leonidas Zourdoumis
Edited by
Iris Cahn
Edited by
Alton Walpole
Written by
Godfrey Reggio
Written by
Ken Richards
Associate producers
Marcel Kahn
Associate producers
Tom Luddy

Current

The Qatsi Trilogy: Geologic Scale and Human Scale
The Qatsi Trilogy: Geologic Scale and Human Scale

The climate change expert discusses how Godfrey Reggio’s films presaged widespread concern about global warming and warned about the dangers of consumerism.

By Bill McKibben

The Qatsi Trilogy: Counterpoint and Harmony
The Qatsi Trilogy: Counterpoint and Harmony

Philip Glass’s experimental operas and symphonic works of the 1960s and ’70s laid the groundwork for his hypnotic Qatsi scores.

By John Rockwell

The Qatsi Trilogy: Celebration and Warning
The Qatsi Trilogy: Celebration and Warning

Cinema is both an educational tool and a vessel for kinetic, avant-garde expression for filmmaker and activist Godfrey Reggio.

By Scott MacDonald

How The Qatsi Trilogy Gave RaMell Ross a New Way of Seeing

Under the Influence

How The Qatsi Trilogy Gave RaMell Ross a New Way of Seeing

The Oscar-nominated director of Hale County This Morning, This Evening finds an expansive political vision in the mind-altering work of Godfrey Reggio.