Dust & Illusions explores 30 years of history of the Burning Man event. Born in the underground of San Francisco in the 1980s, the festival became the largest counter-cultural event in North America. It is unique in that it is created by the people who come to the event, the participants, not the organizers, and in that sense it has survived its original ideals/utopias, but the ideas have been eroded by time, pressure from the larger society. The film is a look at this necessary evolution and expansion and questions our ability to stand behind those ideals over a lifetime.

After 18 months of sold out screening throughout the US, Dust & Illusions will be showing in the Star and Shadow.
The DIRECTOR will be in available for teleconference Q&A after the movie.

Tickets £5 full price £4 concessions

Director’s Note: I discovered Burning Man in 2003. I had lived in San Francisco for 5 years at that point, and had heard about the event, and the general accounts sounded like “It’s the most amazing experience you’ll ever have”, “It has changed my life”, “It’s a wild decadent party”… Born in France, I had a hard time to believe the first two about a one-week festival in the desert. I always thought that things that change your life are not a single event in your life but rather they’re based on a long process – which we might not always be aware of. And after 5 years in the USA, I also started to have a good understanding of how always mesmerized Americans, at least the ones from the San Francisco area, seem to be about everything. Always genuinely exaggerating. On the other hand I had no doubt that a festival with 40 or 50,000 in the middle of desert could degenerate into a wild decadent party.

So in 2003, I finally decided to go, and see for myself what kind of life changing experience the desert party really was. I packed some food, a tent, and went off 6 hours away from San Francisco. When I started to see the city, 10 miles away, emerging from the desert floor, it looked like Mad Max. Literally. A flat piece of earth, with dust plumes rising high above the ground, and a massive encampment in the middle of it. It was a very surreal vision. How could a place like that really exist? Once I entered the festival, it still looked like Mad Max with all these tents and shade structures, and sometimes a vehicle that resembled a space ship, or a simple couch on wheels. People appeared as if they had been residing there for a while, and for some, as if they had lost their mind. Indeed, decadent, but more like the end of a civilization. After a few days, I started to have a better feel for this city in the dust. People had come here, and for the most part set up camps to party, drink or do some yoga. Some were more elaborate than others, but in general, it seemed like a lot of money had been thrown into the camps. Based on the festival rules, no money could be exchanged here, and those who came prepared were here to give away their drinks, massages, and music 24/7.

In the end, Burning Man is different from other festivals because the attendees are the ones providing the entertainment, not the organizers. It gives a strong sense of freedom, since anyone can make anything happen. But a party remains a party, and quickly the original curiosity softens out. One aspect, though, made the festival really unique: the Art. Outside the boundaries of the encampment, in the open desert, lied around some pretty impressive sculptures. With the desert floor as a canvas, the mountains as the frame, the place was transformed into a gigantic museum, where the artwork was left to the madness of the participants and the natural forces. That museum appeared like nature had ripped its walls down, and there were left the pieces of the last exhibition. Again, it felt like civilization had just ended, although, quickly enough, an ambulant rave party would come cruising by merely using the artwork as a reference point in their journey to nowhere.

When I came back to San Francisco, I decided to learn more about the organizers and the artists responsible for this extravagant gathering. It took me 3 years to discover everything that I know about Burning Man today. Very early on, I was lucky enough to be introduced to Flash who has been a very close friend of Larry Harvey, the main founder of the event, since Larry’s arrived in San Francisco in 1980 and I have lived quite a few adventure with him and others, allowing me to get pretty intimate with some historically important figures of the festival. In 2004, I also joined the Flaming Lotus Girls, one of the emblematic groups of artists who have produced impressive sculptures of metal that spits large amounts of fire for the festival. My participation in their group allowed meeting many other artists and active participants as well as people involved in the organization of the event.

During those 3 years, most of these characters have shared with me the stories that have made their lives and the history of the event, and of its deep origins in the counter-cultural movements of the late 70s and 80s in San Francisco. It was only in this manner that all 22 interviewees that make the documentary, opened up to my “intrusive” questions, my provocations and questioning of their beliefs and culture, allowing for an in-depth look at the birth and rise of one of the major counter-cultural event in North America of the past 30 years.

The documentary is a look at another attempt to create a community with more humane values, and how hard it is to escape the system of the larger world we live in. There’s a little bit of hope, though, through the portrait of the artists that truly make the event unique. For them the weeklong festival is like a wink of the eye, since groups like the Flaming Lotus Girls spend the other 51 weeks of the year creating their artwork, and there, in their collaboration, they find the social connections we seem to miss more and more.

A film by Olivier Bonin Madnomad Films & IMAGINE ©2008.

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