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Independent films communicating science at Sundance 2014

Of the 200 feature films presented from over 12,000 submissions at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival, only a handful offer a realistic science theme or an accurate portrayal of a scientist. The Alfred P. Sloan Science Award winner was, for the second time, Mike Cahill, whose first Sloan science winner 3 years ago, Another Earth, imaged a slightly sci-fi astronomical future. In this year’s winning premiere I, Origins, Cahill wraps a serious science story around a molecular biologist dedicated to research on the evolution of eyes. Spanning over seven near-future years, the storyline moves from New York to Idaho to India, touching on everything from romance, sex, death, love, marriage, and the afterlife. The film stars Michael Pitt and Britt Marling, whose main wardrobe consists of the standard white lab coats, and Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, a non-scientist holding onto notions of reincarnation. The story includes essential audience attention-holding devices while viewers witness a laboratory environment rich with testing a new theory, following the data, and chasing a conclusion. Exposure to the process and the passion in science, even in failure, creates an accurate science scenario. “I’m trying to tell something so epic but in an intimate, personal story,” Cahill said. He’s convinced science stretched into a fictional future offers a continuing source of interesting, relevant themes for filmmakers. I, Origins is being distributed internationally by Fox Searchlight. This year marks the 30th Anniversary of the critically acclaimed film event founded by Actor/ Director Robert Redford. The non-profit’s mission remains the same, now with a three decade history of giving voice to independent filmmakers. “Change is inevitable,” Redford said, “You either resist it—we know who those people are—or you go with it. We want to ride with that wave.” In addition to screening films during the 11-day event, Sundance offers a variety of workshops and panel discussions. During the Sundance panel, The Cosmic Crossroads, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Deputy Chief for Solar Exploration Kevin Hand reported that as he serves as a consultant to filmmakers he advises that the focus be to “make science inspire wonder.” According to panelist Max Mayer, whose film Better Living and Adam won the Sloan Award in 2009, the key is to borrow the intelligence from science but make it poetic and understandable. Jurors for this year’s Sloan Prize included two well-known scientists: Kevin Hand, deputy chief scientist for Solar System Exploration at NASA whose research focuses on the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the solar system with fieldwork in some of Earth’s most extreme environments from the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica, to the depths of the Earth’s oceans, to the glaciers of Kilimanjaro; and astronomer Jill Tarter, the Bernard M. Oliver Chair for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute who was the real-life researcher upon whom the Jodie Foster character in Contact is largely based. Flora Lichtman, a science journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, National Public Radio’s Science Friday, and Popular Science 534060 PUS0010.1177/0963662514534060Public Understanding of ScienceFestival review research-article2014