Rodnyansky produced a film with Mike Tyson and will soon present it in New York

At the end of September, the world premiere of American director Godfrey Reggio's film Once Upon a Time will take place at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York. Film produced Alexander Rodnyansky and Steven Soderbergh, and Mike Tyson showed his acting talents, as reported Meduza.

Godfrey Reggio is known as a master of experimental documentary filmmaking. He is the author of the Katsi trilogy, which includes the films Koyaanisqatsi: A Life Out of Balance (1982), Powaqqatsi: A Changing Life (1988) and Nakoikatsi: Life as War (2002). These films develop the story non-verbally, using slow-motion documentary footage and music by Philip Glass.

“Once Upon a Time” is the first work of 83-year-old American director Godfrey Reggio in the last ten years. “Visitors,” the director’s previous film, was released in 2013 and talked about the relationship between man and technology. The soundtrack to Reggio's new work was also composed by Philip Glass.

As Alexander Rodnyansky said, he joined the production of the project at the invitation of his longtime friend Michael Fitzgerald, who was already working as a producer of the new film Reggio.

Unique experience

“Once Upon a Time is a story about how one world ends and a new one is born in its place,” says Rodnyansky. “Since Godfrey was a Catholic priest in the past, his unique experience, of course, has an impact on his cinema: he is interested in people in the context of global challenges of the time. As an author, he is always looking for his own special, unique language, and if “Koyaanisqatsi” is still realism, then “Once Upon a Time” is an extremely unusual film, probably the most radical in its experiments among all Godfrey’s films.”

The film producer also added that the director remained true to his tradition of inviting famous people to participate in his films, so in the film “Once Upon a Time” viewers will see the American boxer Mike Tyson.

According to Rodnyansky, Godfrey Reggio “borrows not so much theatrical techniques as an approach to film as an object of modern art.”

The premiere of the film “Once Upon a Time” is planned as part of a retrospective of the works of Godfrey Reggio, which MOMA is holding from September 26 to October 4.