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Title: Mind and Galaxy
Runtime: 4 min
Country: France
Director: Ion Soteropoulos, Shiho Minami
Placement: Honorable Mention
Competition: January, 2017
Synopsis: This cosmic film narrates the endless transformation of the Mind into Brain, Galaxy, and blossoming Universe and vice versa. Because the most immediate experience that we have is the subjective experience of our Self or Mind containing the totality of our thoughts and sensations of internal and external worlds, we conclude together with the ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras(5th century BCE) that everything (the Universe), comes from our Mind and returns to our Mind. Our Mind is our ultimate certainty and infinite wealth.
Historical Context
Mind, according to the ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras, is infinite and self-ruled, and via rotation generates our galaxy and all of its stars. The whirling galaxy blossoms into a celestial flower, the Universe, whose petals, when open, reveal the beauty of Life made of living cells, and the energy of our Mind made of thoughts and feelings.
At the beginning, Mind rotated over a small area. Now its spins over a wider expanse and transforms itself into a whirling galaxy, the galaxy into a flower, the flower into a whirling galaxy, the galaxy into a vibrating Mind. This endless cosmic transformation evokes within us the feeling of the sublime, a disinterested attraction to the ultimate great: the Divine, which corresponds with our infinite Mind.
The cosmological theory of the Mind of Anaxagoras has its roots in the proto-rationalist idea of the first Indo-Iranian and Greek-Ionian thinkers 3000- 2600 years ago that subjective Mind and the objective Universe are opposite and independent substances, which are equivalent. It is precisely this equality and coexistence of opposites that grounds the endless and reversible transformation between them.
OR: What was the inspiration for your film?
IS: The cosmological thoeries of the ancient Greek Ionian philosopher Anaxagoras (5th century BCE) who intuitively thought the reciprocal relation between our Consciousness and the Universe, our Mind and the Galaxy. In fact, everything starts with our Mind, with our perceptions and thoughts, which in turn generate our Brain and Universe and vice versa in an endless cyclic motion.
OR: When did you conceive the idea for your film and how long did it take before it was realized?
IS: The idea of the film is the quintessence of a thirty years meditation on the relation of our Self with the Universe. It took us 1 year of hard work to realize this inspirational short film with my French-Japanese team.
OR: What was the most challenging aspect of working in a short film format?
IS: The challenge was to express a fundamental truth about our reciprocal relation with our Universe within a minimum time——just only 3.59 minutes!
OR: What was the most challenging aspect of your production?
IS: To co-ordinate at distance a highly diversified french-japanese team composed of pioneering artists of exceptional talent such as the co-director and video artist SHIHO MINAMI, the graphic artist KAHORI MAKI, the english actress ANASTASIA WELLS, and the contemporary composer YOH MURAMATSU.
OR: Do you have any advice for first-time filmmakers?
IS: To have first a strong motivation with their art, which we call disinterested Love. Then to have patience, tenacity, capacity for hard work despite adversity, financial basis independent of their artistic activity, a social capital of strong connections with the film industry and above all good luck, destiny or timeline! Otherwise filmaking is an unlimited series of illusions and frustrations. Only one in a million make it!
