Koyaanisqatsi

Unity Theatre is screening Koyaanisqatsi on Thursday 29 October, as part of Scalarama Liverpool 2026. It's the first film in the Qatsi trilogy, and the screening comes through Unity's ongoing partnership with Liverpool Doc Club, which has been bringing a series of cinematic non-fiction to the theatre.

If you've never come across it, Koyaanisqatsi is a bit of a singular beast. Directed by Godfrey Reggio in 1982, it's a wordless, plotless film built entirely from time-lapse and slow-motion imagery. There's no dialogue and no narration, so Philip Glass's now-iconic score does all the heavy lifting, carrying the whole thing from start to finish. The title comes from the Hopi word for 'life out of balance', and that's exactly what the film works towards: it opens on untouched nature and gradually shifts into the accelerating churn of cities and machines, showing how far humanity has drifted from the world it depends on.

Because there's no one on screen telling you what to think, it's the kind of thing that works best in a cinema, where the images and the music can just take over. It runs for about 87 minutes, so it's a relatively tight watch, and it's the one that started the whole Qatsi series. If you're into non-fiction that doesn't rely on a voiceover to get its point across, this is a good place to start.

The screening is on Thursday 29 October at 7pm at Unity Theatre, and tickets are £10, with a £7 concession available.