Filmed over five years in twenty-five countries, SAMSARA is a new, non-verbal documentary from filmmakers Ron Fricke and Mark Magidson, the creators of BARAKA. It is one of only a handful of films shot on 70mm in the past forty years.
Samsara Teaser
Samsara director Ron Fricke talks about Samsara & the power of flow You can say Samsara was concieved as a non-verbal guided meditation on the cycle of birth, death and rebirth and it’s really sculpted – really produced and directed by the power of flow
- especially in the edit. The overall arc of the project is to guide you through it in that flow. ~ Ron Fricke
Lisa Gerrard (Dead Can Dance) on the emotional sincerity of the score for Baraka & Samsara It draws upon a yearning for things to be done in a way that we hope can bring people to a light of reverence to another human being’s existence. ~ Lisa Gerrard Samsara producer Mark Magidson talks about the differences between Samsara and Baraka
It touches on a lot of elements of the human experience – conflict, war, birth, death, sexuality. There’re all these elements that make us who we are across cultures and everyone deals with them somewhat differently, but there’s a lot we all have in common. The film, is hopefully, an attempt to let you feel that you’re part of the phenomenon of being alive in this moment. ~ Mark Magidson
THE MUSIC OF SAMSARA Samsara’s 95 minutes of nonverbal film is carried by original music composed by Michael Stearns, Lisa Gerrard, and Marcello De Francisci, as well as several contributed compositions. The soundtrack weaves together a layered sonic landscape as richly diverse as the visual experience. Mark Magidson, Ron Fricke, and Michael Stearns, who is renowned for his groundbreaking score for Baraka, reunited again with with well loved musician, singer, and composer Lisa Gerrard. Gerrard previously contributed the track Host of Seraphim to Baraka, and worked with Mark Magidson on the Dead Can Dance tour film Toward the Within.
The Film
Prepare yourself for an unparalleled sensory experience. SAMSARA reunites director Ron Fricke and producer Mark Magidson, whose award-winning films BARAKA and CHRONOS were acclaimed for combining visual and musical artistry.
SAMSARA is a Sanskrit word that means “the ever turning wheel of life” and is the point of departure for the filmmakers as they search for the elusive current of interconnection that runs through our lives. Filmed over a period of almost five years and in twenty-five countries, SAMSARA transports us to sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial sites, and natural wonders. By dispensing with dialogue and descriptive text, SAMSARA subverts our expectations of a traditional documentary, instead encouraging our own inner interpretations inspired by images and music that infuses the ancient with the modern.
Expanding on the themes they developed in BARAKA (1992) and CHRONOS (1985), SAMSARA explores the wonders of our world from the mundane to the miraculous, looking into the unfathomable reaches of man’s spirituality and the human experience. Neither a traditional documentary nor a travelogue, SAMSARA takes the form of a nonverbal, guided meditation. Through powerful images, the film illuminates the links between humanity and the rest of nature, showing how our life cycle mirrors the rhythm of the planet.
The filmmakers approach non verbal filmmaking with an understanding that it must live up to the standard of great still photography, revealing the essence of a subject, not just its physical presence. SAMSARA was photographed entirely in 70mm film utilizing both standard frame rates and with a motion control time-lapse camera designed specifically for this project. This camera system allows perspective shifts to reveal extraordinary views of ordinary scenes. The images were then transferred through the highest resolution scanning process available to the new 4K digital projection format that allows for mesmerizing images of unprecedented clarity. SAMSARA will be a showpiece for the new, high-resolution 4K digital projection, the HD format, as well as standard digital and film projection.
Baraka Samsara