Gurdjieff's Mission
Based on
80 min. Color
DVD and NTSC/PAL formats
$30.00 ISBN: 1-879514-70-2
Stuggle of the Magicians
Exploring the Teacher-
Student Relationship
by William Patrick Patterson
Struggle of the Magicians
Introducing The Teaching to the West
Part II of the award-winning trilogy
THE LIFE & SIGNIFICANCE OF
G.I. GURDJIEFF
Shot on site in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Constantinople, London, Paris and New York,
the 80-minute color documentary follows Gurdjieff from his arrival in Russia in 1912
through to 1924. Having finally established his Institute for the Harmonious
Development in France—he risked all in a make-or-break gamble to take the
teaching to America, for America, Gurdjieff believed, despite its "feverish
existence" and obsession with "growing dollars," was a country which had "the
largest percentage of beings in whose presences the possibility of acquiring Being
is not entirely lost."
Gurdjieff's Mission, based on William Patrick Patterson's Struggle of The
Magicians, portrays Gurdjieff's enigmatic relationship with P.D. Ouspensky and
the little known "St. Petersburg Conditions," his use of "divine acting," the
warning to J.G. Bennett about "too much intellectual knowledge," and intensive work
with A.R. Orage, renowned editor and friend of T.S. Eliot, George Bernard Shaw and
Ezra Pound.
Gurdjieff's Mission is the second in the video trilogy The
Life and Significance of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff. The first video,
Gurdjieff in Egypt: The Origin of Esoteric Knowledge, won the Gold
Award for Biography at WorldFest 2000. Gurdjieff's Mission won
the Gold Special Jury Award for documentary excellence at WorldFest 2002.
The third video, Gurdjieff's Legacy: Establishing The Teaching in the
West won the Gold Special Jury Award for Outstanding Excellence at
WorldFest 2003.
WorldFest, celebrating its 35th year in 2002, is the film festival at
which such notable directors as Steven Spielberg, Ang Lee, Peter Weir
and David Lynch won their first awards. The documentary category has always
been especially strong. In 2001, The Endurance, the story of Earnest
Shackleton's Antarctic exploration, won. There were 4,000+ entries in
all categories in 2002, which was narrowed down to three entries to be
awarded the Grand Prize. Gurdjieff's Mission was one of the three
finalists.
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WINNER OF THE RARELY GIVEN GOLD SPECIAL JURY AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING EXCELLENCE
at WorldFest, one of the oldest and most prestigious of the international film
festivals, GURDJIEFF'S MISSION is the first documentary to detail Gurdjieff's
unwavering struggle to fulfill his mission of establishing the ancient teaching of
The Fourth Way in the West.
