The geography of my mind is the geography of the world I walk in. - John Moriarty
I want us to see life through the eyes of the other. - Mira Nair
It’s becoming clearer by the day that our separation from humans on the other side of the world - and on the other side of the street - is an illusion; and a dangerous one at that. The notion that what I do affects you, and what you do affects me, has perhaps never been so obvious than in the experience of social distancing to prevent the spread of coronavirus. And there’s a lovely dimension to this reality: I can actually help you by taking steps that may cost me something in the short term - and you can help me too. The opportunity to embody the golden rule - to do for others what we would want them to do for us, to love our neighbors as ourselves - may never have seemed so immediate.
But the pandemic just brings into sharper focus what has always been true: I am not an island, even if I feel that way. My actions and inactions affect you - this isn’t exactly rocket science. It may even seem condescending to mention it. But I’ll risk it, because it needs to be held in partnership with a less obvious truth: My choices are shaped by my knowledge of possibility; and those possibilities are limited by the sources of information to which I go, the wells of knowledge from which I drink.
There are others more qualified to speak about books, music, television, and theatre - what I know (and I know that there is much that I don’t know) is movies.
There are nearly 200 nations on Earth, and almost all of them have produced films; but most of us in the English-speaking world experience little beyond the dominance of Hollywood. Every now and then a film not in the English language will break through to a mainstream audience - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Life is Beautiful, Amélie, and most recently Parasite come to mind; and what Parasite’s director Bong Joon-Ho calls “the one inch tall barrier of subtitles” is overcome. And just to take those four - without them, we’d miss the wonder of Crouching Tiger weaving a story about love as sacrifice for the common good, Life is Beautiful risking tastelessness by imagining the same, Amélie speaking to introverted extroverts and extroverted introverts about life becoming more real when it’s shared, and Parasite managing to convey something profound about mutual class loathing while also inviting us to recognize that an eye for an eye leaves all of us blind. And in watching them, we also discover something about Taiwan and China, Italy, France, and South Korea, where the films were made and set, and about the imagination of people from those places. Why would we want our cinematic horizons limited to knowing how US Americans love or fight?
What a wonder it would be to see the world through the eyes of the world.
What a wonder it would be to expand the geography of our imagination with a touch of Ukraine, Guinea-Bissau, Wales, Mexico, and the Federated States of Micronesia.
What it would like to do so without damaging the ecosystem, and in community with fellow travelers who want to go to the same places without flying there, and be in conversation with folk from those places too?
There are almost 200 nations today - the UN has 193 member states and 2 observer states. Almost all of these 195 places have produced at least one film.
Let’s watch them.
This is a call to knit together a community movement dedicated to enlarging our imaginative geography.
I’m here to recruit you to watch one film from every nation that has ever produced a film. Here are the rules:
The movie must have been filmed in the place itself.
It must be largely set in that place.
It must be directed by someone from that place.
Watch one a day, and you’ll be done in six months. Watch one a week, and it will take four years. Watch one a year, and it will take 195 years. However long it takes, it’s not a competition. It’s an invitation to see the world through the eyes of the world; and to let the mind limited by the rigidity of monoculture be exploded into kaleidoscopic vision which can sample, and even create, colors we’ve never seen before. And our lives will change for the better, of this we can be absolutely certain.
We’ll begin with an initial journey of seven films over seven weeks, one from each continent.
We’ll offer introductions and screening notes to help create the most enriching experience. You can watch the film anytime you like, and there will be opportunities to talk with other folk on the journey together; there’ll also be ways to interact with people from the places we’re exploring, and ideas of ways to deepen your experience of those cultures.
When John Moriarty writes that the geography of my mind is the geography of the world I walk in, I think he means to invite us to first become aware that our thinking is too narrow for such a vast Earth; then to do something about it. What a place we could begin to inhabit, if we opened our minds to the dreamtime made possible by the cinematic world.
At the end of it all, I’m willing to bet, not only will we know the world more, we’ll know ourselves better. And be less afraid of both.
Watch this space. We’ll post more details on how you can participate, soon.