Today, we take a look at a few science-oriented documentary films featured at the South by Southwest (SXSW) mega-conference this week.
Documentaries on science subjects do not attract much attention, unless they are about the Apollo missions or about science-fiction. Hence, it is a rare delight to see a few well-crafted documentaries that focus on Science, its history, how it affects us today and what its implications are for humanity tomorrow.
1. Human Nature
Human Nature is a documentary film about the new gene-editing technology CRISPR, exploring its “far-reaching implications, through the eyes of the scientists who discovered it, the families it’s affecting, and the genetic engineers who are testing its limits.”
The biggest tech revolution of the 21st century isn’t digital, it’s biological. A breakthrough called CRISPR gives us unprecedented control over the basic building blocks of life. It opens the door to curing disease, reshaping the biosphere, and designing our own children. Now it’s up to us to decide how far we should go.
How will this new power change our relationship with nature? What will it mean for human evolution? To begin to answer these questions we must look back billions of years and peer into an uncertain future.
Directed by Adam Bolt and co-written by Bolt and Regina Sobel. Dan Rather is one of the Executive producers.
2. Breakthrough
Breakthrough tells the inspiring story of scientist and Nobel Prize winner Dr. James Allison, and his quest to find a cure for cancer, the disease that killed his mother.
Today, the Texan is well known for discovering how to prompt a cancer patient’s own immune system into defeating their disease, but for decades he waged an often-lonely struggle against the painful skepticism of the medical establishment. Breakthrough tells Jim’s story in a way that is inspiring, informative and highly entertaining.
Written and directed by Bill Haney, Narrated by Woody Harrelson, and featuring music by Willie Nelson, Mickey Raphael, and a powerful score by Mark Orton.
3. One Man Dies a Million Times
One Man Dies a Million Times is based on the true story of geneticists trying to protect Russia's seed bank during the Siege of Leningrad.
Caught in the grip of a war-torn Russian winter, the city is starving to death. Despite their hunger, Alyssa and Maksim heroically work to preserve the treasures of the world’s most important seed bank – treasures that hold the key to the future of their country’s food supply - even though its sustenance could mean their survival.
It is a film about seeds and genetic diversity, about growth and decay, about love and war, about hunger of all kinds. About what it means to be human, even when all your humanity is stripped away.
Director: Jessica Oreck
4. Autonomy
Autonomy is a documentary featuring journalist Malcolm Gladwell exploring the landscape of self-driving cars.
Celebrated journalist and author Malcolm Gladwell leads the first comprehensive documentary look at self-driving cars in Autonomy. The film is a cinematic exploration of the world of automated vehicles — from their technical history to the personal narratives of those affected by them to the many unanswered questions about how this technology will affect modern society. Autonomy features interviews with industry pioneers and scenes with cutting-edge “AVs” in action around the world.
Inspired by a special issue of Car and Driver, Autonomy reinforces the context of where the “car” meets the coming revolution in mobility, presenting an essential primer on the subject and how it will affect you.
Doesn’t appear to have a trailer.
5. Stuffed
Stuffed is a documentary feature film about the surprising world of taxidermy and the passionate artists across the world who see life where others only see death.
“Stuffed” is a documentary feature film about the surprising world of taxidermy. Told through the eyes & hands of acclaimed artists across the world, the film explores this diverse subculture where sculptors must also be scientists, seeing life where others only see death. From an all-female studio in Los Angeles to fine artists in the Netherlands, these passionate experts push creative boundaries. The film highlights a diversity of perspectives including an anatomical sculptor in South Africa & a big game taxidermist in Ohio. And, in an unexpected twist, “Stuffed” reveals the importance of preserving nature, using taxidermy as its unlikely vehicle, and the taxidermist as its wild driver.
Directed by Erin Derham.
6. The Atomic Tree
The Atomic Tree is a haunting film about the 400-year-old Japanese White Pine bonsai that witnessed and survived the atomic blast in Hiroshima.
The Atomic Tree is a virtual reality journey into the memories of one of the most revered trees in the world’s 400-year-old Japanese White Pine bonsai that witnessed and survived the atomic blast in Hiroshima.
From Japan’s ancient cedar forests and Buddhist temples to the family home in Hiroshima where the pine was nurtured for five generations, this VR experience explores the unbroken chain of living stories held within the rings of this tree. The delicate shape of this bonsai contains sacred forests, human family, and deep time, inviting us to reflect on the living strands of kinship that are woven between human and non-human worlds.
Directed and Produced by: Adam Loften & Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
Written by: David Haskell, Adam Loften & Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
Narrated by: Peter Coyote
From www.engadget.com/… -
"We're interested in the media of VR not because of the reach it could give but because of the experience it could offer," The Atomic Tree director Adam Loften told Engadget at SXSW. "A story like this, I think, would be a lot drier and historical and one-dimensional if we told it using the same techniques you're seeing here -- you've got a narrator, you've got documentary footage, you've got recreation scenes, and some animations -- those are kind of very standard documentary tools. But in VR you can make them transportive, and meditative, and truly immersive in a way you can't [traditionally]."
The Atomic Tree is a 10-minute dive into the life of a single pine tree that blossomed in a secluded Buddhist temple high in the cedar forests of Japan. The bonsai was then lovingly cared for, for five generations, by the Yamaki family. A high wall in the family's home protected the tree from the atomic blast on August 6, 1945, which obliterated the surrounding landscape, poisoning it with radiation and filling the air with death. The tree was given to the US as a bicentennial gift from Japan in 1976.
I did not see any notable documentaries about the environment and climate change, so here are a few from the Sundance festival a month ago (there were many more at that festival).
7. Sea of Shadows
Sea of Shadows is a documentary about the vaquita, the world’s smallest whale, which is near extinction as its habitat is destroyed by Mexican cartels and Chinese mafia, who harvest the swim bladder of the totoaba fish, the “cocaine of the sea.” Environmental activists, Mexican navy and undercover investigators are fighting back against this illegal multimillion-dollar business.
From Austria. Director: Richard Ladkani. Sundance Audience Award.
8. Anthropocene: The Human Epoch
Anthropocene: The Human Epoch is a beautiful film that follows the research of an international body of scientists, the Anthropocene Working Group, who, after nearly 10 years of research, are arguing that the evidence shows the Holocene Epoch gave way to the Anthropocene Epoch in the mid-twentieth century, as a result of profound and lasting human changes to the Earth.
Filmmakers: Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier and Edward Burtynsky.
Epilogue
Plus there is Apollo 11, which is a feel-good documentary of the Apollo mission based on actual footage, some recently discovered, not re-enactments.
What do you think about these upcoming documentaries? What other science oriented films and documentaries are in the pipeline that you are aware of? Which science documentaries have you admired the most over the years?
Further Reading
- SXSW Preview: Science At The Festival — scienceandfilm.org/…
- www.sxsw.com
- The 390-Year-Old Tree That Survived the Bombing of Hiroshima — www.smithsonianmag.com/…
- Outstanding Documentaries and Short Films from Sundance 2019 — www.dailykos.com/...