Pi: The Guerilla Diaries

Pi: The Guerilla Diaries — Production Archive by Darren Aronofsky

Pi: The Guerilla Diaries is a 2024 archive book by Darren Aronofsky, published by A24 × MACK. It documents the making of Pi (1998) through primary source material rather than retrospective commentary, functioning as a production diary and compact archive of his first feature film.

What the Book Contains

The volume brings together the complete Guerilla Diaries — Aronofsky's contemporaneous journal entries from the production — alongside a new introduction written by Aronofsky for this edition. Beyond the diaries themselves, the book draws on a wide body of archive material: unpublished photographs, script notes, camera tests, cinematographer sketches, internal memos, and personal letters. These fragments are presented as found documents rather than curated retrospective commentary.

The result is not a screenplay book, nor a conventional film tie-in. It sits closer to a process document: the paperwork, revisions, and production residue of a first feature assembled under constraint. Readers interested in independent filmmaking, film ephemera, or archival publications will find it catalogued within our Film Books & Film Culture collection.

The Object

The physical design of the edition reinforces its archival character. The embossed paperback cover, two 6mm drill holes through the binding, and lay-flat construction give the book a handled, file-like quality — closer to a production binder than a finished publication. That tactile logic is consistent with the content: the book reads as working material, not as a polished retrospective object.

Publisher

The book is a product of the A24 × MACK publishing partnership. A24 is the American independent film and entertainment company; MACK Books is the London-based independent publisher known for artist books and photobooks. The collaboration has produced a small number of titles connecting film culture with the artist publication format.