In this eclectic spin on the concert film, Ross Lipman transforms footage of one of his celebrated live documentary performances into a new video essay that’s at once an archeological dig and a riveting history. Its underlying subject is the origin of civilization – as comprised entirely of media clips. In the summer of 1971 Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos announced the discovery of a tribe of primitive cave dwellers who had lived in complete isolation for thousands of years in the rainforest of Mindanao. The Tasaday indigenous group represented a chance to witness firsthand the roots of our culture, and to explore the very essence of humanity.  They also—as we learn—offered Marcos and his cronies a unique political opportunity.

The Book of Paradise Has No Author presents this stunning story entirely through its portrayal in differing accounts by western media, integrating rare ethnographic footage, vintage television broadcasts, recordings, and still photographs. Reflecting on each other like shards of broken glass, these third-party depictions reveal as much about the telling as the tale --at once detailing the events, and retaining the mystery of our haunting encounter with the Tasaday.

Ross Lipman is an independent filmmaker, archivist, and essayist. His films have screened throughout the world and been collected by museums and institutions including the Academy Film Archive, Anthology Film Archives, Northeast Historic Film, the Oberhausen Kurzfilm Archive, Budapest's Balazs Bela Studios, and Munich's Sammlung Goetz. His feature documentary Notfilm was named one of the 10 best films of the year by ARTFORUM, SLATE, and many others.

Formerly Senior Film Restorationist at the UCLA Film & Television Archive, his many restorations include Barbara Loden's Wanda, Kent Mackenzie's The Exiles, the Academy Award-winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, and works by Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, Shirley Clarke, Charles Burnett, Kenneth Anger, Lourdes Portillo, Robert Altman, and John Cassavetes. He was a 2008 recipient of Anthology Film Archives' Preservation Honors, and is a three-time winner of the National Society of Film Critics' Heritage Award. His writings on film history, technology, and aesthetics have been published in Artforum, Sight and Sound, and numerous academic books and journals.