No Maps for These Territories

No Maps for These Territories
DVD cover for the documentary
Directed by	Mark Neale
Produced by	Mark Neale, Chris Paine, Mark Pellington
Written by	Mark Neale
Starring	William Gibson Jack Womack Bruce Sterling Bono
Music by	Daniel Lanois The Edge tomandandy
Cinematography	Grant Gee Joe Kessler Steven Miko Mark Neale Chris Norr Mark Ritchie Phillip Todd
Edited by	Nicholas Erasmus Rochelle Watson
Distributed by	Docurama
Release date	2000
Running time	89 minutes
Language	English
Budget	$250,000

No Maps for These Territories is an independent documentary film made by Mark Neale focusing on the speculative fiction author William Gibson. It features appearances by Jack Womack, Bruce Sterling, Bono, and The Edge and was released by Docurama. The film had its world premiere at the Vancouver International Film Festival in October 2000.

At the time of the project's conception, Gibson – an American exile in Vancouver, Canada – was seen as a reclusive figure, who thought the didactic inclination in novelists anathema and was not prone to divulging much in the way of personal information in interviews and retrospectives. The documentary was intended to assuage the dearth of knowledge of Gibson's perspectives on self, career and culture and to uncover the hitherto obscured depths of the writer.

The film was shot on location in the United States, Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.

During the documentary Gibson muses both on his past and the circumstances that led him to write what he wrote, as well as our present which, accordingly, is starting to resemble in many particulars the futures he has variously penned. He speculates on topics as wide-ranging as post-human society and mechanics, nanotechnology, drugs and drug culture, the effect of Neuromancer on his fans and his later writing career, and the normalisation of technology. The documentary is extremely free-flowing and also highly personal, in that it allows one to gain a close understanding of both the thought processes and internal psychological triggers of William Gibson. He is occasionally prompted by an unseen driver figure, female in voice, and sometimes communicates with outside figures (specifically, Jack Womack and Bono, who was also being filmed at the time, the final product being superimposed on an electronic billboard).