Godfrey Reggio/Institute for Regional Education films and papers
Overview
Contains films and papers of American filmmaker Godfrey Reggio (b. 1940), including documentation of Reggio’s film productions and social activism. Also contains institutional records of the Institute for Regional Education (IRE), a New Mexico non-profit organization co-founded by Reggio in 1972.
Dates
- Creation: 1940-2019
Creator
- Reggio, Godfrey (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
There are no restrictions on physical access to the paper portion of this collection. Collection is open for research. The Harvard Film Archive's manuscript collections and paper-based materials are accessed through the Houghton Library Reading Room. This material is shelved offsite at the Harvard Depository. Retrieval requires advance notice. Researchers should check with Houghton Public Services staff to determine retrieval policies and times.
Access to audiovisual material is by appointment only. Applications to consult this material should be directed to the staff of the Harvard Film Archive. Film prints are made accessible in close consultation with HFA staff. Although materials do not circulate for individual use, students, filmmakers, artists, and researchers are encouraged to use the collections on-site.
Conditions Governing Use
Reproduction and/or publication of materials subject to copyright requires written permission from a) the copyright owner, their heirs or assigns and from b) the Harvard Film Archive, owner of the original material.
Extent
57 linear feet (59 manuscript boxes)140 items (approximately 113 film items, 23 audio items, 4 video items)
Unknown Gigabytes (2 hard drives, 2 digital files, 2 flash drives, 8 CD-Rs)
The Godfrey Reggio/IRE films and papers includes material in a variety of formats documenting Reggio’s life as an artist and social activist. The collection contains production elements, including sound and picture outtakes, and final release elements for all Reggio’s film projects in their original release formats. This includes the Qatsi trilogy, comprised of Koyaanisqatsi (1983), Powaqqatsi (1988), and Naqoyqatsi (2002), as well as subsequent films such as Anima Mundi (1991) and Visitors (2013).
The manuscript portion of the collection details every aspect of Reggio’s film productions, from philosophical outlines to production schedules, budget records to publicity ephemera, shot logs to distribution plans. Also included is material reflecting Reggio’s collaborations with composer Philip Glass, cinematographer Ron Fricke, and Institute for Regional Education associates such as Lawrence Taub, Mel Lawrence, and Ray Hemenez.
The collection also includes documents related to Reggio’s public life before becoming a filmmaker. This includes his early experiences teaching as a monk in the Christian Brothers order; co-founding the Young Citizens for Action in 1963; involvement as an advisor to the Student National Education Association in 1969-1970; and co-founding La Gente and La Clinica de la Gente in 1970.
Material about the Institute for Regional Education, a nonprofit organization co-founded by Reggio in 1972, centers on the multimedia public interest campaign that Reggio directed in 1974-1975 for the American Civil Liberties Union. The collection also includes correspondence and planning material related to the development of Fabrica, as well as extensive planning material for a film project alternately known as Massman, The Massman Manifesto, and The Massman Chronicles that Reggio developed during his time as Fabrica’s director.
Among the personal material in the collection is correspondence, original writings and lectures, as well as material pertaining to Reggio’s family history.
The collection also includes the recording and transcript of a comprehensive oral history interview conducted by Harvard Film Archive director Haden Guest with Reggio, Ray Hemenz, and Dan Noyes in 2018.
For additional information about the Godfrey Reggio/IRE films and papers, please visit the Harvard Film Archive’s collection page.
Biographical / Historical
Born in New Orleans in 1940 and raised in Louisiana, Godfrey Reggio was still a teenager when he took his vows in the Christian Brothers order. He lived as a monk for 14 years, dedicating himself to prayer, study, teaching, and community service. In 1963 Reggio co-founded Young Citizens for Action, a New Mexico group aimed at uplifting juvenile street gangs. After leaving the Christian Brothers in 1968, Reggio served as an advisor to the Student National Education Association (SNEA). Two years later, he helped to launch La Gente and La Clinica de la Gente, a community organizing project and health clinic based in Santa Fe.
In 1972 Reggio co-founded the Institute for Regional Education (IRE), a Santa Fe-based non-profit foundation exploring the intersection of media technology, the arts, and community organizing. With funding from the American Civil Liberties Union, Reggio directed a multimedia public interest campaign about the invasion of privacy by governments and corporations. This mass media project anticipated many of the formal and thematic concerns of Reggio’s films.
Beginning in 1975, Reggio set out to develop an immersive feature-length documentary film that would explore the effects of technology on the natural world and human consciousness itself. Koyaanisqatsi premiered at Radio City Music Hall in 1982 and was immediately heralded as a breakthrough work. A rare experimental film to achieve popular success, Koyaanisqatsi also marked the first of Reggio’s many collaborations with composer Philip Glass.
Reggio followed Koyaanisqatsi with Powaqqatsi and Naqoyqatsi, both of which feature distinctive time-lapse cinematography and original music by Glass. “Each of the Qatsi films is a meditation on a different dimension of modern life,” writes scholar Scott MacDonald, “and together they offer a celebration of the magnificence of both natural and human creation, as well as a warning about how much is endangered if we fail to find a more effective balance between nature and technology.”
Between the last two entries of the Qatsi trilogy, Reggio directed Anima Mundi (1991), a short film on biological diversity produced for the World Wildlife Fund, as well as developing an idealistic educational venture related to media arts with Luciano Benetton and Oliviero Toscani. Fabrica launched in Treviso, Italy in 1995, and during his time as director Reggio produced the short film Evidence (1995).
Visitors (2013) marked Reggio’s return to feature filmmaking and his native Louisiana. Filming the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in high-definition video, Reggio developed a distinctive approach to portraiture that for MacDonald is “akin to the experiences enjoyed by early audiences for the Cinématographe and the various media that were premonitions of cinema.”
Reggio continues to live in New Mexico, where he is currently completing his latest film project, Once Within a Time.
Arrangement
The collection has been arranged in the following series: I. Films; II. Institute for Regional Education (IRE) records; III. Fabrica; and IV. Personal papers.
Physical Location
Harvard Depository
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Institute for Regional Education, 2016
Processing Information
Processed by Rona Razon and Max Goldberg, 2019-2022.
Creator
- Reggio, Godfrey (Person)
- Institute for Regional Education (Santa Fe, N.M.) (Organization)
- Title
- Reggio, Godfrey. Godfrey Reggio/Institute for Regional Education films and papers (hfa00007): Guide
- Status
- completed
- Author
- Harvard Film Archive, Harvard University
- Date
- 2022
- Description rules
- dacs
- Language of description
- eng
- EAD ID
- hfa00007
Repository Details
Part of the Harvard Film Archive, Harvard Library, Harvard University Repository
The Harvard Film Archive is one of the largest university-based motion picture collections in the United States, with a collection of 40,000 audio visual items, a growing number of manuscript collections, and nearly one million still photographs, posters, and other promotional materials from around the world and from almost every period in film history. The HFA's collection of paper materials, including the documentation of individual filmmakers as well as promotional materials such as posters, film stills, and ephemera are accessible to Harvard affiliates as well as to outside researchers.
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