Godfrey Reggio (b. 1940, New Orleans) is a filmmaker known for the QATSI trilogy, essays of image and sound that chronicle the destructive impact of the modern world on the environment. Raised in southwest Louisiana, he entered the Christian Brothers, a Roman Catholic order, at age 14 and spent 14 years in fasting, silence and prayer. Based in New Mexico in the 1960s, he taught and co-founded community projects including Young Citizens for Action, which aided juvenile street gangs. In 1972 he co-founded the Institute for Regional Education in Santa Fe. His directorial debut, "Koyaanisqatsi" (1983), takes its title from a Hopi word meaning "life out of balance", followed by "Powaqqatsi" (1988) and "Naqoyqatsi." He also directed "Anima Mundi" (1991) for the World Wide Fund for Nature. With John Fitzgerald, he created "Techno Firma" at the Pérez Art Museum Miami, an interactive AI sculpture that reimagines "Koyaanisqatsi."
Godfrey Reggio. Photo by Peter Weiss, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
