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August 7, 2008 |
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TWENTY YEARS IN THE MAKING
Twenty years in the making and based on images of 19th century painters, photographers and scientific illustrators, PROTEUS brings these undersea worlds to life in a wonderfully unique film, available on DVD beginning September 16th. The central figure of PROTEUS is biologist and artist Ernst Haeckel. As a young man, Haeckel was torn between science and art, materialism and religion, inner and outer worlds. Through his discoveries beneath the sea, Haeckel reconciled these dualities, bringing themtogether in an almost mystical vision. His work profoundly influenced not only biology but Art Nouveau and Surrealism, Sigmund Freud and D.H. Lawrence, Vladimir Lenin and Thomas Edison. The key to Haeckel’s vision was a tiny undersea organism called the radiolarian, one of the earliest forms of life. Haeckel discovered and painted four thousand species of these one-celled creatures. In the seemingly infinite variety of their intricate geometric skeletons, Haeckel saw all the possibilities of organic and created form. Around Haeckel’s story, PROTEUS weaves a tapestry of biology and oceanography, poetry and myth. The legend of Faust and the journey of Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner are part of the story, together with the laying of the transatlantic telegraphic cable and the epic voyage of HMS Challenger. As these threads lead us back to Haeckel and the radiolaria, PROTEUS becomes “indescribable...a remarkable movie that continually urges the mind to reach beyond what is examined on the screen” (Leonardo: The Journal of Arts, Sciences and Technology). Director DAVID LEBRUN has served as producer, director, writer, cinematographer, animator and/or editor of more than sixty films, among them films on the Mazatec Indians of Oaxaca, a 1960s traveling commune, Tibetan mythology and a year in the life of a Maya village. He edited the Academy Award-winning documentary Broken Rainbow, on the Hopi and Navajo of the American Southwest. Lebrun’s experimental and animated works include the animated film Tanka (1966), works for multiple and variable-speed projectors such as Wind Over Water (1983), and a 2007 multimedia performance piece, Maya Variations, in collaboration with composer Yuval Ron. DVD Bonus Features: The Making of Proteus • Biography of Ernst Haeckel • Radiolaria Gallery • Resource Guide OFFICIAL SELECTION • Sundance Film Festival “A one-of-a-kind visual treat! May cause audiences to look at (and think about) “Dazzling!” - LA WEEKLY “Truly stunning!” - SCIENCE MAGAZINE “Thrilling! Brain food that goes down like brain candy.” “Magnificent...Wonderful! Like strolling through a cabinet of wonders.” PROTEUS |
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UNLOCKING THE SECRETS OF AN ANCIENT CIVILIZATION Available on DVD beginning September 16, 2008
BREAKING THE MAYA CODE, the story of the 200-year struggle to unlock the lost secrets of this ancient civilization, will be available on DVD on September 16th. Based on archaeologist Michael Coe’s book, called by The New York Times “one of the great stories of twentieth century scientific discovery,” this amazing detective story is filled with false leads, rivalries and colliding personalities. It takes us from the jungles of Guatemala to the bitter cold of Russia, from ancient Maya temples to the dusty libraries of Dresden and Madrid. The heroes of the story are an extraordinary group of men and women: linguists and mathematicians, artists and adventurers, archeologists and eccentrics - each finding a different piece of the puzzle. They include an English photographer, a German librarian, a Russian soldier, a California newspaperman, and an art teacher from Tennessee. An 18-year-old boy, immersed in the glyphs since early childhood, makes the final breakthrough. The deciphered texts reveal an epic history of alliances and betrayals, powerful rulers, brilliant generals and sophisticated artist-scribes. They also unveil a world of kings and queens who shed and burned their blood to invoke the Vision Serpent, and an intricate cosmology that weaves together the lives of humans, the deeds of mythic heroes and the cycles of the planets and the stars. For the six million Maya living today the decipherment is a doorway to the past – uniting them with their own lost history and opening up an invaluable treasure for all of us. Director DAVID LEBRUN has served as producer, director, writer, cinematographer, animator and/or editor of more than sixty films, among them films on the Mazatec Indians of Oaxaca, a 1960s traveling commune, Tibetan mythology and a year in the life of a Maya village. He edited the Academy Award winning documentary Broken Rainbow, on the Hopi and Navajo of the American Southwest. Lebrun’s experimental and animated works include the animated film Tanka (1966), works for multiple and variable-speed projectors such as Wind Over Water (1983), and a 2007 multimedia performance piece, Maya Variations, in collaboration with composer Yuval Ron. DVD Bonus Features: Production Scrapbook • Director Biography • Resources “One of the great stories of twentieth century scientific discovery!” “Mind-blowing stuff!” - MAUI FILM FESTIVAL BREAKING THE MAYA CODE Visit David Lebrun’s website for more about Breaking the Maya Code and Proteus: |
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For the 19th century, the world beneath the sea played much the same role that outer space played for the 20th. The ocean depths were both the ultimate scientific frontier and the home of imagination and the fantastic. 
For almost 2000 years, the ancient Maya of Central America recorded their history and ideas in an intricate and beautiful hieroglyphic script. Then, in the 16th century, Spanish invaders burned their books and ruthlessly extinguished hieroglyphic literacy. By the 18th century, when stone inscriptions were discovered buried in the jungles of Central America, no one on earth could read them.