Opening Night: The Universe is a Laboratory

Opening Night / Imagine Science Film Festival

The Imagine Science Film Festival is coming to NYC on October 12-19 and we're kicking the week off with film, VR and immersive works!!!

We open with a celebration of inquiry into all forms of the unknown: existence on the macro-scale and micro, secrets both personal and cosmic. And woven throughout, brushing all with urgency and pathos, questions of survival loom large. To understand is to persevere. The universe is a vast experimental space whose rules may become more cryptic the closer we look, but it is ours to explore as deeply as we can.

The film program will be followed by a panel discussion featuring filmmakers Marleine van der Werf, Réka Bucsi, and Linnea Rundgren discussing their work and our capacity to observe the universe around us, moderated by Sonia Epstein (Museum of the Moving Image and Sloan Science and Film).

Film line-up (TRT 72 min):

I Saw the Future (François Vautier | 6 min | France | 2018)

In a dark expanse that could be the cosmos, A C. Clarke tells us of the arrival of digital revolution, decades ahead of his time. An invitation to travel and a crepuscular form of poetry.

Mira (Amanda Tasse | 9 min | USA | 2017)

A film about the relationship between the life cycle of galaxies, the immortal jellyfish, and a young marine biologist’s own mind as she risks her life to pursue the work she loves.

The Prediction Machine (Marleine van der Werf | 15 min | Netherlands | 2017)

In his ‘Prediction lab’, Dutch neuroscientist Floris de Lange explores our perception. Inspired by ‘Robocop’ in his teens, De Lange became interested in reproducing the human brain, and understanding perception is the first step.

Non-Linear - A journey through Time and Microcosmic Space (Linnea Rundgren | 6 min | Sweden / Australia | 2015)

A soliloquy from the Earth itself, congratulating life for several billion years invention, and giving some encouragement -- and caution -- for the next stage of nano-technological creativity.

Solar Walk (Reka Bucsi | 21 min | Denmark | 2018)

A multi-level space odyssey into the mysterious universe, and the melancholy of accepting chaos as beautiful and cosmic. Any meaning of action is only existent from the perspective of the individual, but never mandatory when looking at it from the perspective of a solar system.

Singularity Song (Rachel Mason | 5 min | USA | 2017)

A meditation on black holes, pairing legendary butoh dancer, Oguri, with the voices of Kip Thorne and Rana Adhikari.

Interstellar Matter (Joshua Peek | 3 min | USA | 2018)

A serene tour through the diffuse interstellar matter in our Galaxy.

[O] (Mario Radev & Chiara Sgatti | 7 min | UK | 2017)

An esoteric ecology of an almost-incomprehensible world: oje where every living being communicates, hunts, eats, drinks, or even moves using particular ranges of sound.