Burning Man and the Meaning of Life

…is the title of the latest movie about Burning Man, which has been launched on iTunes in HD for $12.99 – a standard definition version for $9.99 is out next week.

They set up this photo booth on the Playa, and asked Burners to stop in and explain what they thought the meaning of life was. Some Burners used the opportunity to do drugs and have sex…of course.

Here’s an interview with film-maker Julie Pifher:

“I had this idea six years ago. I was in film school at the time and learning about the meaning of life in a philosophy class and thinking about that in terms of my own life. And then I got to talking with a friend of mine, and we were saying wouldn’t this be cool to go to this thing, I wonder what it’s like, it must be so cool. And then I thought, that would be such a cool thing to ask these people, who are really out there, really open-minded, really just kind of different from your everyday — or who are in a different environment than your everyday — what they think the meaning of life is.”

Pifher had never been to Burning Man before she went to film her documentary. In addition to a traditional crew armed with two cameras conducting interviews, they set up a special booth designed to capture the Burners at their most unguarded and honest.

“We built this big photo booth, soundproof booth, in the middle of the desert, and it had a motion sensored camera, so every time someone came into the booth, it recorded them. There were questions on the walls, just some things to point them in the right direction. We had hundreds of people throughout the week come into that booth and be really honest. In one clip, somebody is crying; in another, people are just laughing and having a good time. Somebody had sex in our booth; some people definitely did drugs in the booth.“

The wild costumes and uninhibited behavior in the trailer are enough to reaffirm beliefs that Burning Man is nothing more than a big hippie party in the desert. But Pifher had an instinct that people who voluntarily trek into the middle of the desert to commune might have a perspective worth exploring, and her hunch was right.

“I saw this festival as a microcosm of life; it’s born anew each year, and you live it, and then they burn it down, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and then they rebuild it next year. So in that week, you can almost sort of experience a lifetime. I think that a lot of people go there looking for transformative change. They’re looking for an escape from their life because modern-day life is such a grind, and that’s not really natural. We’re put in this box and people go there to step outside that box and experience something different.”

So, what — according to the free love, communal living Burners — is the meaning of life? What else?

“Love. I think that the strongest answers, the most common answer, the one we received the most, and the most succinct is love. It’s all just kind of part of living, and it is that part of life that keeps us going. It definitely tested my answer. Part of love is loving yourself and loving others, and so for me, this documentary really tested my skills as an artist and as a human being. Dream big, do big things, ’cause that’s love, it’s all love, and it gives you purpose.”

The 2008 documentary “Confessions of a Burning Man” is also available for purchase or rental on iTunes.