Filmmaker: Michael M. Conti

 

Michael Conti: A Story behind A Film

Michael Conti — filmmaker, director, and writer–found personal direction in Hildegard’s example and dedicated a film to the magistra’s legacy and her impact on numerous people he interviewed—healers, performers including Linn Maxwell Keller, artists, and academics like Professor Beverly Mayne Kienzle at the Harvard Divinity School.  The Unruly Mystic: Saint Hildegard (2014) premiered in Germany, was screened by invitation at Harvard University and delighted audiences worldwide. 

Conti, whose films “explore the wellness and spiritual connection to creativity, nature and science,” premiered The Unruly Mystic: John Muir in 2018. An ecological preservationist, Muir founded Yosemite National Park.

Michael M. Conti completed a series of eleven videos based on the filming he did in Germany during the 2019 pilgrimage on The Hildegard Way. That video series then became 60-minute film, Hildegard Speaks which premiered in Brad Kreuznach, Germany in August 2022 during the Hildegard Week.

View of Hildegard land during winter in Germany
View of Hildegard land during winter in Germany

The path to there all started almost ten years ago now.

Spiritual Retreat to Germany

It all started in 2013 when I decided to take my first ever pilgrimage to the Rhineland.  I took a 10-day retreat which was billed as a Birthing Vision, coinciding with the spring equinox in the Rhineland, and the opportunity to immerse into the Light and Greening Power of Hildegard.  The result of that retreat was for me the start of a film entitled The Unruly Mystic™ which is a prescriptive documentary of how I as the filmmaker reaffirm my life’s work when I fell in love with a 12th century Saint.  It is a journey that has now taken me to Germany several more times, and given me to the opportunity to meet artists, writers, musicians, theologians and doctors around the world that have found their life changed by Saint Hildegard.

michael conti
Michael Conti with Sister Hildred

Included in the film are other insightful interviews with Benedictine Sr. Lydia from the Abbey of St. Hildegard, Germany; Professor Beverly Mayne Kienzle at the Harvard Divinity School; Linn Maxwell, a world-class mezzo soprano on her one-woman Hildegard show, The Living Light; Dr. Wighard Strehlow’s healing work at the Hildegard Center in Allen Bach, Germany; and American Episcopal priest and theologian Matthew Fox.  Read more about the Filmmaker.

Michael M. Conti has over 25 years of experience in video production, technical direction, hosting online learning modules, and streaming platform distribution to help tell stories and monetize film content.  As a director, editor, producer, and consultant, Conti’s successful track record, beginning in Hollywood and beyond, is representative of his work through Michael M. Conti Productions LLC.