Connecting education, labor, and play scenes worldwide, this film explores how we learn, what we pass on, and how far we can imagine. It traces learning dynamics in supercomputer cabinets, chalk curves, and basket-weaving hands, following researchers and intellectuals to explore labyrinths of thought. The film asks: What if thought is movement? When is intelligence artificial? Can robots dance? Through traditional media like games, crafts, stories, and cinema, this work questions values and skills society passes to the next generation, leading audiences to contemplation with curiosity and flexibility.​

Seven years after co-directing an ode to the writer John Berger, world-renowned actor Tilda Swinton and filmmaker Bartek Dziadosz reunite for The Hexagonal Hive and a Mouse in a Maze—a journey through thinkers, caterpillars, and computer algorithms. 

As Swinton’s narration frames it, this is simply “a film about learning.” Traversing the UK, Bangladesh, West Africa, and North America, the filmmakers explore the nature of education without succumbing to easy fascination with technology. Here, everything becomes a subject of inquiry: the weaving of baskets from tree branches, the lines that form written letters, the geometry of a honeycomb. Throughout this wide-ranging exploration, Swinton, Dziadosz, and their team maintain a rare combination of profound respect and intellectual humility.

Their sources of wisdom are not only scientists and master artisans but also ordinary people and children, whose insights carry equal weight. The film is a gentle call to keep our curiosity open to the world. At a time when human capacities are being tested by artificial intelligence, its message feels both urgent and essential.

 

The team that came together under the banner of the Derek Jarman Lab to make our Four Portraits of John Berger - The Seasons in Quincy - began a few years ago to explore a new essay film about learning. We specifically wanted to steer away from any impulse to make definitive statements. We threw our net wide, and curiosity was our principal motor. Questions, and not answers, were the object of our search. We wanted to approach a territory in which shared information, without the counterweight of calculated conclusions, might spark synapses in new ways.

• ProducerLily FORD
• Screenplay Bartek DZIADOSZ, Tilda SWINTON, Lily FORD
• Cinematography Eddie BOLGER
• Edit Bartek DZIADOSZ
• Production Design Lily FORD
• Sound Bea MOYES
• Music Simon FISHER TURNER

Alan BUTLER
​alan@alanbutler.info ​