Imagine Films Presents
A Film by Paul Howard
“Space is not empty... [it's] the ground for the existence of everything, including ourselves.” ––David Bohm, Physicist––
PRESS KIT Running Time: 72 minutes
Rating: Unrated Distributor:
CounterPoint Films
PR:
360 Degree Communications (310) 454-8933
Email Contact:
press@infinitepotential.com
SYNOPSIS
He was one of the 20th Century’s most brilliant physicists. Albert Einstein called him his spiritual son. The Dalai Lama relied upon him as his “science guru.” So why is it that hardly any of us know the name: David Bohm?
By telling the little-known story of David Bohm and evoking the realms he explored in his research, INFINITE POTENTIAL takes us on a mesmerizing and immersive journey into
the mystery of consciousness––through the use of hypnotic music and rich visual tapestries. The film includes interviews with luminaries such as H.H. the Dalai Lama, esteemed artist Sir Antony Gormley, Oxford philosopher and physicist Sir Roger Penrose, and many more who were influenced by Bohm’s revolutionary work.
Growing up in a poor Pennsylvania coal-mining town during the Great Depression, David Bohm possessed a rare and maverick intelligence that baffled his parents and peers. After earning a scholarship to go to college, Bohm got the attention of the greatest minds in science, including Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the Atomic Bomb, who became his thesis advisor but would eventually turn against him.
Bohm’s explorations led him to intuit a hidden order to reality––the Quantum Potential–– that underlies both the microscopic world of subatomic particles and also the macro world of stars and galaxies. Bohm had turned to Eastern thought and the wisdom traditions of India to talk about this field that “informs” all of creation––a realm that mystics have known about for millennia and modern science is only just beginning to explore. Bohm’s revolutionary ideas were way ahead of their time––a threat to the scientific orthodoxy. And that’s why he was ignored.
Today, University College London and the University of Toronto are conducting experiments to prove the existence of the Quantum Potential, which could revolutionize human thought, our relationship to the planet––and David Bohm could well become a household name.
The Filmmakers PAUL HOWARD (Director and Producer)
A Producer, Director, Executive Producer of international repute with an enviable track record in documentary, television series and more recently in narratives––specifically, a romantic comedy entitled “TWICE UPON A TIME IN DUBLIN,” which Paul completed in 2016.
Paul has worked across many disciplines in the film/television industry over the past 30 years in Ireland and overseas, variously performing the role of director, producer, series producer, writer, covering genres such as biography, natural history, wildlife, current affairs. He has directed and edited numerous critically-acclaimed TV programs and documentaries, working for RTE (Irelands Public Service Broadcaster), Imagine Limited (Independent Film & TV Company), Nine Network (Sydney, Australia), Nomad Films International (Melbourne, Australia) and Sky Visuals (Sydney, Australia). He also performed the role of joint managing director in a number of Independent Television companies.
Some recent successes include “21st CENTURY RAILWAY – A modern history of railways; WAITING for Houlihan, Arts documentary nominated for an IFTA award; MARSH TO THE SKIES – The secret Irish /American alliance that gave American access to Shannon Airport during the ‘Cold War’; THE IRISH IN HOLLYWOOD – a documentary special on the cultural impact that the Irish have had on the famous Film Town; BLOOMSDAY, a documentary celebrating James Joyce’s Ulysses, which was broadcast internationally.
In Australia, Paul completed TRIUMPH OF THE NOMADS, a history of Australia prior to the arrival of European white settlement; and THE PINTUBI, a series about the last remaining tribe of Aborigines who roamed the outback of Australia up until 1935. Also BREAKTHROUGHS,
a series on the latest developments in science and medicine.
Paul is married to Bernadette Stapleton and together they have four children, three boys and one girl.
H.H. the Dalai Lama being interviewed by Paul Howard during
the making of Infinite Potential: The Life and Ideas of David Bohm.
JULIETTE HÜSLER (Director of Photography and co-Editor)
Juliette is a cinematographer, editor and artist. She grew up in Switzerland, where
she also went to school. Juliette has worked for companies like Lufthansa, Pampers, Tebco, Red Bull, Nivea, Wordvision, Line Japan and many more all over the world. She has always been interested in topics such as quantum physics, consciousness, as well as awareness, sustainability and the idea of the interconnectedness of everything.
DAVID HOWARD (co-Editor)
David is a media executive, music producer, composer and editor. He was born in Sydney, Australia but grew up in Dublin, Ireland.
He created the successful BLUEPRINT MEDEIA GROUP, where he managed multiple film and television projects and their associated commercial branding in Dublin, London and Sydney. He is also a founding director at January 3 Entertainment.
He is very interested in the concept of Wholeness, personal and global transformation. He is currently based in London.
BERNADETTE STAPLETON (Associate Producer)
With over 30 years’ experience in the film and television industry, working in Australia, the U.K., and Ireland, Bernadette has enjoyed a distinguished career as an editor, associate producer and producer.
She has worked in genres covering natural history, drama production and in the commercial sectors. She has particular skills in script editing, production management and is a specialist on tax incentives pertaining to the film and TV sectors.
Currently, she is developing “Speranza” – The Mother of Oscar, a new perspective on the Playwright and Poet Oscar Wilde seen through the prism of his mother – Jane Francesca Wilde – “A Woman of Some Importance”.
FILIP PISKORZYNSKI (Music Composer)
Filip Piskorzynski is an award-winning filmmaker and musician based in Hamburg Germany. He started making films during his Studies of economic engineering at the Hamburg University of Technology in 2004. As a cinematographer, director and music composer, he has worked for clients such as Lufthansa, Allianz, BMW, Audi, Louis Vuitton, Toshiba, Telekom, Bosch, Nivea, VW, and a many more.
Filip has made two feature films - one as Director of Photography and one as a Co- director, in addition to making numerous award-winning shorts.
Filip is fluent in German, Polish, English & French and learning Spanish, Russian, Italian, Japanese & Mandarin. He is very proud to be associated as music composer for Infinite Potential – The Life and Ideas of David Bohm.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT A Flickering Reality
I discovered David Bohm in a little village in Italy in 2012. Prior to that I knew nothing of him.
Now having just completed a film on his life, his incredible work in physics, philosophy and the nature of consciousness, the question for me is, how come I never heard about this extraordinary man and his work?
Many of the questions that pre-occupied me during my formative years have since been answered by getting to know Bohm and his work, questions concerning the nature of humanity, who we are collectively, where did we come from and why science and spirituality seemed to be so far apart.
Fast reverse!
When I was very young, I attended the Cinema regularly. As soon as the lights went down and the projector beam hit the screen, I entered another reality. I completely lost any awareness of those around me and was drawn into the reality of the movie.
Often I wondered, as I walked home after such screenings, could the reality that I was witnessing in front of me be some kind of projection? This thought used to bother me a lot. My friends would often catch me spinning around at staggering speed to see if I could catch the un-seen projector hiding behind me. But no matter how I fast I turned, I never found it.
So I began to think that there may be a dimension of reality that lies beyond our sense perceptions which feeds into the reality of our everyday world. Could this be the unseen projector I was looking for?
Some years later, I was travelling in the cockpit of a Boeing 737 with my father, an airline pilot. I was strapped into what they call the ‘jump’ seat just behind my Dad. The destination: London Heathrow. The aircraft was experiencing turbulence, visibility was almost zero. There were cross winds of 80 mph and it was raining hard. We were descending rapidly. My eye was on the altimeter and I could see the rapid rate of decent.
Shortly before landing I said to the first officer “how do you know where we are?” But it was my Dad who answered saying: “count to 15 and you will see the runway directly in front of us”.
I counted to 15. And low and behold, there it was, the main runway at Heathrow all beautifully lit with the runway lights reflecting in the wet. Amazing!
So, I asked the question again: “how did you know our position above the ground with nothing visible in sight?”, and my Dad turned to me with a smile and said, “ye of little faith”....
Well actually, it had nothing to do with faith. Certainly not faith in any kind of religious sense. It was a faith grounded in hard physics. Had my Dad tried to land that Boeing using only his sensory perceptions, the aircraft would have ended up strewn across some field far from its destination. The aircraft landed safely through a human reliance on instruments which are rooted in the physics equations of Albert Einstein.
And so I came to another realization; we misperceive our world through our sense perceptions. We rely on something beyond our reality of space time to navigate our everyday world.
Again, I thought of the unseen projector.
Fast forward!
Then I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Up there on the giant cinema screen, the mysterious Universe spread out before me in all its vastness and splendor. The scientific impulse to find out more about our universe mixed with philosophical ideas about freewill, the ending of time, reincarnation, life beyond earth. Consciousness. Suddenly - all the colors seemed to run into one. One giant cosmic projector....
Fast forward again!
Italy 2012. A small medieval village.
I was alone in a small café bar. An elderly gentleman with a strong Liverpudlian accent appeared beside me and ordered an espresso.
We chatted together for a while as we were the only two people in the village speaking English. His name was David Peat, a physicist. We became friendly.
When David Peat found out I was a filmmaker, he came to visit me at my house one day and asked me to read a couple of A4 sheets of paper with a title that read “Infinite Potential” – The life and ideas of David Bohm.
In that brief synopsis I read about the Implicate order/Explicate order, the Quantum Potential and non-locality. I was immediately drawn to the philosophical aspects. The idea that our apparent everyday world of space and time emerged from a deeper “dimension.” Also, I was very attracted to the maverick intelligence behind what I read: Bohm himself.
Here was a clear explanation of that deeper dimension of reality, the unmanifest and formless, enfolding and unfolding into our manifest world of form, the mystery behind our perception of actuality...
This was it. I had indeed found that projector I was looking for.
That beam of light, emerging from the deeper cosmic reality behind all the dualities of our 3-dimensional world, in which humankind, both as actors and audience appear on the screen of manifest reality.
Once grasped, I was able to comprehend that deeper dimension where everything is interconnected, a full expression of wholeness. I came to KNOW that beyond the veil of form one can realize a ONENESS, present in you, me, the Universe and everything. I sensed that realm of BEING, which is fully consistent with quantum theory. In that state of being, normally obscured by the mind, I began to believe that we are all ONE CONSCIOUSNESS, the immeasurable “Spirit” that Bohm says “is never born and never dies”...the profound realization that there is No dying, No death.
Bohm believed that nature has an infinite quality.
He merged INTO his physics, profound ideas which have been known for millennia by the mystical traditions of the east, a realization that the whole Universe is contained in each part and that all of time is contained in each and every passing moment. A wholeness that is held together by CONSCIOUSNESS itself.
That was David Peat’s gift to me when we met in that Café Bar in Italy.
He introduced me to David Bohm – the visionary scientist and spiritual man.
Statement from Juliette Hüsler,
Director of Photography, co-editor
I’m very honored to be among a select group of creative people who had the chance to contribute to the film Infinite Potential. Filmmaking is teamwork and we had a lot of amazing people working very hard to allow this project to manifest itself.
As the cinematographer and one of the film’s editors, my primary contribution was to the visual language. My approach was to visualise the idea of “undivided wholeness” and come up with metaphoric montages that could do it justice. David Bohm referred to it as the “Implicate Order” enfolding into the “Explicate Order”––a notion he picked up from quantum mechanics and adapted into his own theory. Bohm hypothesized a new order to quantum physics in which all things are interconnected and they form a unity––a so-called underlying reality, which emerges through the act of conscious observation and becomes explicate. It ́s not visible and then, suddenly, it is.
I wanted to represent this miraculous transition––this moment between not being and being. An ephemeral state between mind and matter.
The image below is an example of this concept of the Implicate Order––everything constantly unfolding into the Quantum Field and then enfolding into the now. This effect of a raised hand “enfolding” and blending into a field of wheat seemed like the perfect illustration of this concept.
I loved the challenge of translating a technical concept into “art”. For me, the way to understand complex realities is to try to simplify them. Inspiration also came from moments where I was truly present, observant of my surroundings––particularly in nature. When you start to look for patterns in the natural world, you start to see them all over, such as the fractals and spirals which appear everywhere.
Statement from David Howard,
Co-Editor
It’s not often that a project comes along that gives one the opportunity to ask meaningful questions about ourselves as individuals, about life in general and what it is that motivates our behavior and approach to life.
From the beginning, I could see that it was going to be quite a challenge to balance the spiritual and science aspects of the project and to make them appealing to a general audience. Paul and I were at one in that we both felt we needed to create a deep sense of mystery from the beginning. How could we do this. I thought that the one experience people are always moved by is the mystery of the night sky. When people actually get to look at the night sky on a clear night they are filled with a kind of awe and respect for the mystery and magnitude of creation. We had some great footage of starry night skies and it just so happened that Paul had done an interview in which Bohm draws attention to that very mystery. Bohm believed that the so-called vast emptiness of deep space is not empty at all, but in actuality is vast fullness out of which space-time and our “apparent” reality emerges. I felt that would be a perfect opening...we both felt that would be a great place to start exploring Bohm’s very radical ideas....
Once we had a beginning, a point to launch the films narrative thrust, then I felt the rest would flow from there. I felt that the best route to travel was to try and build a narrative spine for the project through the great interviews that Paul had gathered together. So, we worked every day, distilling the core content of each interview on a theme by theme basis so that they cohered and would allow the story to unfold in a clear and accessible manner.
For me the finished project is truly amazing. It raises many very important questions that are so relevant for the uncertain times we live in. It also provides direction on how we might begin to answer those questions.
Colour grading Infinite Potential at High Wire in Dublin.
KEY INTERVIEWS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
Dr. David C. Schrum Quantum Theorist
H.H. the Dalai Lama
Dr. F. David Peat Theoretical Physicist and Author
Sir Roger Penrose Mathematical Physicist & Philosopher of Science Dr. Jan Walleczek Director of Phenoscience Labs - Berlin
Prof. Basil Hiley Collaborator and Colleague of Bohm for over 30 years Dr. Shantena Augusto Sabbadini Quantum Physicist & Philosopher
Paavo Pylkkanen Philosopher of Mind - University of Helsinki, Finland Prof. Olival Freire Jr. Professor of Physics & History of Science Maureen Doolan Long-time friend of Saral & David Bohm
Lee Nichol Bohm Collaborator, Editor, Educator
Dr. David Edmund Moody Author and Educator. Author of “An Uncommon Collaboration: David Bohm and J. Krishnamurti”
Dr. Chris Dewdney Reader in Theoretical Physics - University of Portsmouth, UK Aephraim Steinberg Experimental Quantum Theorist, University of Toronto, Canada
Antony Gormley Artist. His sculpture “quantum cloud”, mounted on the Thames is based on Bohm’s notion of prespace.
INTERVIEWS INCLUDED IN THE EXTENDED 110-MINUTE DIRECTOR’S CUT: Yakir Aharanov, Israel. The Aharanov-Bohm effect was several times nominated for a Nobel
Prize.
Leroy Little Bear, Calgary. Blackfoot Elder on his meeting/discussions with Bohm, on the Blackfoot language and worldview exactly how he saw the world.
FILM CREDITS
PRODUCER AND DIRECTED BY PAUL HOWARD
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS BRUCE FETZER JAN WALLECZEK
WRITTEN BY DAVID PEAT PAUL HOWARD
NARRATED BY PAUL HOWARD
ARCHIVAL RESEARCH MAUREEN DOOLAN
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY JULIETTE HÜSLER
ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY
DAVID WEST – OJAI, CA
JAMES TOCHER – LETHBRIDGE, AB CANADA, VANCOUVER, BC CANADA BARRA VERNON – UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON TOMAS SKWARA – PARI, ITALY
PAUL HOWARD – PARI, ITALY
EDITED BY DAVID HOWARD JULIETTE HÜSLER NICK CONEDERA
ANIMATIONS AMATICITY
VFX ARTIST CALIN DEAC
ANIMATION CONSULTANT CHRIS DEWDNEY
ANIMATED SEQUENCE FOOTAGE PARAIC MCGLOUGHLIN JULIETTE HÜSLER
FILIP PISKORZYNSKI
BRANDING
JAMES RIDER GROUP
MUSIC
FILIP PISKORZYNSKI
LEA FREIDRICH – STRINGS ON “ENTANGLEMENT”
CONSULTING PRODUCERS PAOLA DI FLORIO PETER RADER COUNTERPOINT FILMS
ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS BERNADETTE STAPLETON DAVID HOWARD
JUDY SCOTT FELDMAN AND
NEIL B. FELDMAN
“TO MY NEXT INCARNATION”
CO-PRODUCERS CIPRIAN MAN AJAY VIRKAR
SPECIAL THANKS TO KRISHNAMURTI FOUNDATION OF AMERICA BROCKWOOD PARK SCHOOL, ENGLAND KRISHNAMURTI CENTRE OF CANADA THE SARJIT K. SIDDOO TRUST
THANKS TO
MELISSA MOFFATT-SEGONDS MICHAL ZAHAVA WOOLFSON
VERY SPECIAL GRATITUDE TO
H.H. THE 14TH DALAI LAMA OF TIBET AND TSENTEN SAMDUP CHHOEKYAPA
PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT INDIA AVINASH KUMAR AND BANDANA KUMARI TRISNA FILMS NEW DELHI
CAMERA
RAKESH KUMAR CHEEMA
SOUND KANWAR SURJEET
WILKES BARRE, PENNSYLVANIA CAMERA
SCOTT SPINUCI
UNIVERSITY OF SÃO PAULO CAMERA/SOUND
NICOLE SAMPERI
UNIVERSITY OF BAHIA, SALVADOR CAMERA/SOUND
THAIS RAMOS
COLOUR GRADE & ONLINE EDIT MARK QUINN HIGH WIRE, DUBLIN
GRADE ASSISTANT SIOFRA QUINN GATES
SOUND MIX STEVE MCGRATH HIGH WIRE, DUBLIN
SOUND ASSISTANT JENNIFER HARMON
PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT, ITALY ELEONOR PEAT
TECHNICAL ADVISOR, ITALY ANDREA BARBIERI
THANKS TO GODELIEVE SPAAS JULIE ARTS
INSPIRATION PATRICK CELKA
SCIENCE CONSULTANTS BASIL HILEY JAN WALLECZEK PAAVO PYLKKANEN
OUR APPRECIATION
MAYOR ALESSANDRA BIONDI COMUNE DI CIVITELLA PAGANICO, TUSCANY, ITALY
MARKETING VALERIE BISHOP ANA MARIA MCCOMBS
FUNDING FOR THE FILM WAS PROVIDED IN PART BY THE JOHN E. FETZER MEMORIAL TRUST
TO INQUIRE INTO THE INTERCONNECTEDNESS BETWEEN SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALITY FOR THE TRANSFORMATION OF SELF AND SOCIETY
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