The International Buddhist Film Festival Official Selection Series screening on Sunday, March 9, 2025 with the World premiere of O Mother Gaia—The World of Gary Snyder completely sold out. An encore screening is set for Friday, March 14 at 7:00 pm. Filmmaker Colin Still will attend and will also present a new short featuring Gary Snyder, Songs from Turtle Island, and will be joined by BFF Executive Director Gaetano Maida for a conversation on stage following the screening at the Smith Rafael Film Center, San Rafael, California.
This is the first feature-length film documenting the life and work of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet/activist Gary Snyder. The film was skillfully assembled and remastered from the filmmaker’s original 1990s 16mm footage shot for British television, and offers a vivid self portrait of the famously elusive poet and essayist through his poems and commentary.
Filmed on location at his Kitkitdizzie/Ring of Bone Zendo home in the Sierra and other locations connected with him, it also features key archival footage from the 1950s and 1960s, as well as contemporaneous readings and commentary by Peter Coyote, Jane Hirshfield, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Shoemaker, and Michael McClure, and a precious interview with Snyder’s late wife Carole Koda.
O Mother Gaia official website.