michael o'callaghan
FILMOGRAPHY • TEXTS • CONFERENCES • ARCHITECTURE • ART Click here for full bio
FILMOGRAPHY
Time for Change: a millennium message from the Dalai Lama. A message from the Tibetan Buddhist Nobel Peace laureate on personal responsibility, finance, security, pluralism, and secular ethics. Supported by UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP, UNEP, UNFPA, WHO, IUCN, IISD, WWF, Peace Child International, City Screen Cinemas, and Working Title (Developments). Filmed in New Delhi. 1999. Producer & director.
Global Vision: Rio+10. A collection of 25 in-depth interviews with NGO leaders on the emerging global civil society consensus in 2002. Filmed during the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development (Rio+10) at Johannesburg, 10 years after the first Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro. Featuring Achim Steiner (IUCN), Mark Halle (ICTSD), Helena Norberg-Hodge (IFG), Jane Goodall (World Future Council), Claude Martin (WWF), Mathis Wackernagel (Global Footprint Network), Kaarin Taipale (ICLEI), Barry Coates (World Development Movement), Felix Dodds (UK Stakeholders Forum), Randy Hayes (RAN), Jonathan Lash (WRI), Rémi Parmentier (Greenpeace), Bernward Geier (IFOAM), Wally N’Dow (Habitat II), Danny Schechter (Media Channel), David Woollcombe (Peace Child International) and Ernst-Ulrich von Weizsäcker (Wuppertal Institute). Supported by IUCN. Filmed in Johannesburg. 2002. Producer & director.
A Plea for Global Education. A message from Nobel Peace Laureate Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Guatemalan human rights activist and UN Spokesperson for the world’s 300 million indigenous peoples. Filmed in New York. 1992. Producer & director.
Sustainability: The Best Investment. A short film to promote the idea of a global multimedia curriculum on sustainability. The film compares the annual investment required to solve the 12 most important world problems identified by the Buckminster Fuller Institute with the global military budget. Supported by UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP, UNEP, UNFPA, WHO, IUCN, IISD, WWF, Peace Child International, Working Title (Developments), City Screen Cinemas, Peter Gabriel and Martin Scorsese. Filmed in London, 1998. Producer & director.
Be The Change! A documentary about 1,000 teenagers from 130 countries who gathered for 2 weeks in Morocco in 2003 to participate in 100 sustainable development action projects and discuss their visions of the future. The event was organised by Peace Child International with funding from H.R.H. Hassan VI, the King of Morocco. 2003. (120 minutes, in postproduction.) Producer / director.
Future Tapes. A collection of dozens of 3-minute interactive videos on the future of the world, recorded by its own public including ordinary people and leading global thinkers including Buckminster Fuller, paleoanthropologist Richard E. Leakey, futurist Hazel Henderson, psychiatrist R.D. Laing, philosopher Thomas Berry, architect Paolo Soleri, educatior Elaine de Beauport, UN Under-secretary General Robert Mueller, Rear-Admiral Gene LaRoque, linguist Helena Norberg-Hodge, economist Kenneth Boulding, et al. Filmed in the USA. 1978-1981. Producer & director
Nuclear Tapes. Interactive video exhibit made & shown during the historic meeting of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which won the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize, and founded ICAN which won the same prize in 2017. With Dr. Helen Caldicott, (Australia), Dr. Georgy Arbatov (USSR), Dr. Evgueni Chazov (USSR), Dr. Bernard Lown (USA), Dr. Tatsuichiro Akizuki (Japan) et al. in collaboration the Department of psychiatry at Harvard School of Medicine. USA. 1981. Co-produced & directed with Suzanne Greason.
Fire On The Mountain: a gathering of shamans. A documentary on a historic 10-day meeting between the Dalai Lama, shamans representing the spiritual traditions of the world’s indigenous peoples, and representatives of the organised religions, to compare their conceptions of the sacred and promote religious pluralism. Filmed at Karma Ling in the French Alps. Distributed by Mystic Fire Video. 1997. 106 minutes. Directed by David Cherniack. Co-producer with Sheldon Rochlin.
GM-free production: a unique selling point for Ireland - the food island. Press conference video with key stakeholders in Dublin, 2009.
GM-free Ireland campaign videos with Winonah Hauter, Benedikt Haerlin, Percy Schmeiser, Vandana Shiva et al. 2004-2009
GM Food Safety. 3-part interview with Prof. Patrick Wall, former President of EFSA - European Food Safety Authority, on the European Union’s system of risk assessment and regulation of food and animal feed produced from GMO crops. 2008. Producer & director.
Health Security. Video clip of Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Executive Director of the WHO, on the annual investment required to provide healthcare for all, compared with the world military budget. Filmed at WHO in Geneva. 2000. Producer & director.
Water Security. Video clip of Bernardo Bertolucci on the annual investment required to provide safe water and sanitation for all, compared with the world military budge. Filmed in London. 2000. Producer & director.
Global Vision: Rio+10. A collection of 25 in-depth interviews with NGO leaders on the emerging global civil society consensus in 2002. Filmed during the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development (Rio+10) at Johannesburg, 10 years after the first Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro. Featuring Achim Steiner (IUCN), Mark Halle (ICTSD), Helena Norberg-Hodge (IFG), Jane Goodall (World Future Council), Claude Martin (WWF), Mathis Wackernagel (Global Footprint Network), Kaarin Taipale (ICLEI), Barry Coates (World Development Movement), Felix Dodds (UK Stakeholders Forum), Randy Hayes (RAN), Jonathan Lash (WRI), Rémi Parmentier (Greenpeace), Bernward Geier (IFOAM), Wally N’Dow (Habitat II), Danny Schechter (Media Channel), David Woollcombe (Peace Child International) and Ernst-Ulrich von Weizsäcker (Wuppertal Institute). Supported by IUCN. Filmed in Johannesburg. 2002. Producer & director.
A Plea for Global Education. A message from Nobel Peace Laureate Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Guatemalan human rights activist and UN Spokesperson for the world’s 300 million indigenous peoples. Filmed in New York. 1992. Producer & director.
Sustainability: The Best Investment. A short film to promote the idea of a global multimedia curriculum on sustainability. The film compares the annual investment required to solve the 12 most important world problems identified by the Buckminster Fuller Institute with the global military budget. Supported by UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP, UNEP, UNFPA, WHO, IUCN, IISD, WWF, Peace Child International, Working Title (Developments), City Screen Cinemas, Peter Gabriel and Martin Scorsese. Filmed in London, 1998. Producer & director.
Be The Change! A documentary about 1,000 teenagers from 130 countries who gathered for 2 weeks in Morocco in 2003 to participate in 100 sustainable development action projects and discuss their visions of the future. The event was organised by Peace Child International with funding from H.R.H. Hassan VI, the King of Morocco. 2003. (120 minutes, in postproduction.) Producer / director.
Future Tapes. A collection of dozens of 3-minute interactive videos on the future of the world, recorded by its own public including ordinary people and leading global thinkers including Buckminster Fuller, paleoanthropologist Richard E. Leakey, futurist Hazel Henderson, psychiatrist R.D. Laing, philosopher Thomas Berry, architect Paolo Soleri, educatior Elaine de Beauport, UN Under-secretary General Robert Mueller, Rear-Admiral Gene LaRoque, linguist Helena Norberg-Hodge, economist Kenneth Boulding, et al. Filmed in the USA. 1978-1981. Producer & director
Nuclear Tapes. Interactive video exhibit made & shown during the historic meeting of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which won the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize, and founded ICAN which won the same prize in 2017. With Dr. Helen Caldicott, (Australia), Dr. Georgy Arbatov (USSR), Dr. Evgueni Chazov (USSR), Dr. Bernard Lown (USA), Dr. Tatsuichiro Akizuki (Japan) et al. in collaboration the Department of psychiatry at Harvard School of Medicine. USA. 1981. Co-produced & directed with Suzanne Greason.
Fire On The Mountain: a gathering of shamans. A documentary on a historic 10-day meeting between the Dalai Lama, shamans representing the spiritual traditions of the world’s indigenous peoples, and representatives of the organised religions, to compare their conceptions of the sacred and promote religious pluralism. Filmed at Karma Ling in the French Alps. Distributed by Mystic Fire Video. 1997. 106 minutes. Directed by David Cherniack. Co-producer with Sheldon Rochlin.
GM-free production: a unique selling point for Ireland - the food island. Press conference video with key stakeholders in Dublin, 2009.
GM-free Ireland campaign videos with Winonah Hauter, Benedikt Haerlin, Percy Schmeiser, Vandana Shiva et al. 2004-2009
GM Food Safety. 3-part interview with Prof. Patrick Wall, former President of EFSA - European Food Safety Authority, on the European Union’s system of risk assessment and regulation of food and animal feed produced from GMO crops. 2008. Producer & director.
Health Security. Video clip of Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Executive Director of the WHO, on the annual investment required to provide healthcare for all, compared with the world military budget. Filmed at WHO in Geneva. 2000. Producer & director.
Water Security. Video clip of Bernardo Bertolucci on the annual investment required to provide safe water and sanitation for all, compared with the world military budge. Filmed in London. 2000. Producer & director.
TEXTS
Global Vision: Worldview Formation and Transformation — Cognitive Processing in Self-Organising Systems.
Written in 1981, this text was privately circulated as the participatory planning manual for the content of an impressionistic musical feature film conceived as a collective self-portrait of humankind and the biosphere. It includes a conceptual framework that integrates Francisco Varela’s concept of autopoiesis, Gregory Bateson’s epistemology and Buckminster Fuller’s idea of negentropy into a new cognitive model of biological and social evolution called the Syntropy Ratio theory. The futurist and development policy analyst Hazel Henderson praised this as “one of the most succinct descriptions of the theoretical underpinnings of the societal transformation of human cultures now underway, and why this new worldview must be fostered.” New York, 1981.
When the Dream Becomes Real: The Inner Apocalypse in Mythology, Madness, and the Future. A transpersonal study of the transformative function of apocalyptic symbolism in the psyche and society. Includes a seminal interview with the Jungian psychiatrist Dr. John Weir Perry and his non-drug approach to schizophrenia. 1991.
Sustainability: positioning the concept as a global goal. NGO position paper for the UNESCO conference on Environment & Society: Education and Public Awareness for Sustainability. Thessaloniki, Greece. 1997. Published in Environment & Society : Education and Public Awareness for Sustainability, proceedings of the Thessaloniki International Conference organised by UNESCO and the Government of Greece, University of Athens, 1998, ISBN 960-86312-0-3. Re-published in Sustainable Development: Education, The Force of Change, Transdisciplinary Project “Educating for a Sustainable Future”, (EPD) UNESCO, 1999, Paris, ISBN 92-9143-039-0.
Ireland as a GMO-free biosafety reserve for Europe. GM-free Ireland position paper for the Food & Democracy: 5th International GMO-free Regions Conference . PowerPoint. Lucerne, Suisse. 2009.
When the Dream Becomes Real: The Inner Apocalypse in Mythology, Madness, and the Future. A transpersonal study of the transformative function of apocalyptic symbolism in the psyche and society. Includes a seminal interview with the Jungian psychiatrist Dr. John Weir Perry and his non-drug approach to schizophrenia. 1991.
Sustainability: positioning the concept as a global goal. NGO position paper for the UNESCO conference on Environment & Society: Education and Public Awareness for Sustainability. Thessaloniki, Greece. 1997. Published in Environment & Society : Education and Public Awareness for Sustainability, proceedings of the Thessaloniki International Conference organised by UNESCO and the Government of Greece, University of Athens, 1998, ISBN 960-86312-0-3. Re-published in Sustainable Development: Education, The Force of Change, Transdisciplinary Project “Educating for a Sustainable Future”, (EPD) UNESCO, 1999, Paris, ISBN 92-9143-039-0.
Ireland as a GMO-free biosafety reserve for Europe. GM-free Ireland position paper for the Food & Democracy: 5th International GMO-free Regions Conference . PowerPoint. Lucerne, Suisse. 2009.
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE PLANNING AND EXECUTION
UNDPI/NGO - United Nations Department of Public Information / NGO conferences
Global strategy coordination for UN & civil society organisations, UN, New York. Member, 1994-1996
Member of the UNDPI/NGO Planning Committee.
Green Ireland Conference: Branding for food, farming and eco-tourism. With Vandana Shiva (India), Percy Schmeiser (Canada), Deborah Koons Garcia (USA), Benedikt Haerlin (Germany), Michel Dupont (France), Dr. Stanley Ewen (UK) and Frank Corcoran (Ireland), et. al. at Kilkenny Castle. Co-hosted by the GM-free Ireland Network & An Taisce —the National Trust for Ireland. Producer & Co-Chair. 2006.
Convergence Festival Dublin Seminars & workshops on the dangers of GMO food & farming, which led 131 stakeholder groups to form the GM-free Ireland Network, Dublin. 2003 & 2004. Producer & Chairperson.
Rhône Economic Forum Graduate Institute Geneva. Networking for business stakeholders from the Rhone river watershed in Switzerland and France. Keynote speaker: Nora Bateson. Member of the planning committee. 2015.
Green Ireland Conference: Branding for food, farming and eco-tourism. With Vandana Shiva (India), Percy Schmeiser (Canada), Deborah Koons Garcia (USA), Benedikt Haerlin (Germany), Michel Dupont (France), Dr. Stanley Ewen (UK) and Frank Corcoran (Ireland), et. al. at Kilkenny Castle. Co-hosted by the GM-free Ireland Network & An Taisce —the National Trust for Ireland. Producer & Co-Chair. 2006.
Convergence Festival Dublin Seminars & workshops on the dangers of GMO food & farming, which led 131 stakeholder groups to form the GM-free Ireland Network, Dublin. 2003 & 2004. Producer & Chairperson.
Rhône Economic Forum Graduate Institute Geneva. Networking for business stakeholders from the Rhone river watershed in Switzerland and France. Keynote speaker: Nora Bateson. Member of the planning committee. 2015.
ARCHITECTURE DESIGN
Architectural plans and detailed 3D model for the proposed renovation of a 1000-year old castle and,village in the Chianti hills of Tuscany where Global Vision Foundation hopes to establish a world-cla transdisciplinart centre for worldview transformation. Very large Sketchup file and funding proposal. 2011.
ART
Global Vision Geneva:
A huge very high resolution visual allegory of Geneva as microcosm of the planet, overlaying the logos of global stakeholders on Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s painting, The Tower of Babel, incorporating many other additional items, artworks and a photo of Geneva seen from the artist’s balcony. Digital montage, 12m x 10m, 600dpi, 4.5 Gigabytes. 2016-2021.
Lithographs, oil paintings, gouaches, aquarelles, pen & ink drawings. 1955-1972.
Lithographs, oil paintings, gouaches, aquarelles, pen & ink drawings. 1955-1972.