With guest director Nora Bateson and special guest Joan Gratz

6:45 PM   Bijou Art Cinemas

USA (2010)
Directed by: Nora Bateson
Written and narrated by: Nora Bateson
Produced by: Nora Bateson and David Sieburg
Edited by: David Sieburg
With: Fritjof Capra, Jerry Brown, Mary Catherine Bateson
Running Time: 60 min.

An Ecology of Mindwon the Gold Medal for Best Documentary at the recent Spokane International Film Festival.  It is a film portrait of Gregory Bateson, celebrated anthropologist, philosopher, author, naturalist, systems theorist, and filmmaker, directed by his daughter, Nora Bateson. GregoryBateson’s theories, such as “the double bind” and “the pattern which connects,” continue to impact the fields of anthropology, psychiatry, information science, cybernetics, urban planning, biology, and ecology, challenging people to think in new ways.

The film includes footage from Gregory Bateson’s own films shot in the 1930s in Bali (with Margaret Mead) and New Guinea, along with photographs, filmed lectures, and interviews. Nora Bateson depicts her father as a man who studied the interrelationships of the complex systems in which we live with a depth motivated by scientific rigor and caring integrity.Through contemporary interviews with people Bateson influenced (including Governor Jerry Brown, Stewart Brand, William Irwin Thompson, and Fritjof Capra), along with his own words, Bateson’s way of thinking reveals practical approaches to the enormous challenges confronting humanity and the natural world.

An Ecology of Mindhopes to inspire its audience to see their lives within a larger system—glistening with symmetry, play, and metaphor. Deborah Tannen writes: “This unique documentary will be an invaluable resource to the many who have drawn on Gregory Bateson’s ideas—myself included—and to those for whom this will be an enlightening introduction.”

 

Preceded by Portland-based animator Joan Gratz’s latest films: Puffer Girl (2009, 5 min.), the perplexing adventures of a puffer fish who pushes the boundaries of her world, and Kubla Khan (2010), based on Coleridge’s opium-induced poem and clay painted by Gratz in a drug-free state.