Social & External
Self
Chaco Canyon, located in northwest New Mexico, is perhaps the only site in the world constructed in an elaborate pattern that mirrors the yearly cycle of the sun and the 19-year cycle of the moon. How did an ancient civilization, with no known written language, arrange its buildings into a virtual celestial calendar, spanning an area roughly the size of Ireland?
Cave paintings and lunar calendars exist in the caves and remains of prehistoric hunters studied recently. What if Prehistoric Man were clever enough to develop in depth scientific knowledge? As unlikely as it may seem, new data tend to prove that Prehistoric Man actually invented Astronomy!
CERN and the University of California-Santa Barbara are collaborating in the search for the elusive substance that physicists and astronomers believe holds the universe together -- dark matter. Where is this search now in the realm of particle physics and what comes next?
Archive footage from 2006 - 2010 of a young girl growing up during the ages of four to eight. Only fragments of what is remembered exists. Words from a transgender man float to the surface as fleeting memories go on.
This feature-length documentary is a portrait of eclipse chasers, people for whom solar eclipses - among nature's more spectacular phenomena – are a veritable obsession. The film follows 4 of them as they travel incredible distances to witness the last total eclipse of the millennium as it sweeps eastward across Europe to India. At various points along the way enthusiasts Alain Cirou in France, Paul Houde in Austria, Olivier Staiger in Germany and Debasis Sarkar in India offer their impressions of the historic event.
An incredible travel through space and time between the walls of the Paris Observatory, which is celebrating its 350th birthday. Place of discoveries such as speed of light or Neptune’s existence, it is still today one of the oldest operating observatories and the greatest hub in the world for astronomy and astrophysics researches, second only to Harvard.
Human genetics is one of the most exciting fields in science at the moment. Not only does it advance exponentially fast, it is also a field of study that will very soon affect our daily lives. We will all have to deal with the possibilities and technologies that human genetics have to offer, today and in the coming years. Quite a few questions and dilemmas still have to be answered by us. Do I want to know everything that can be found out from my DNA? And who is allowed to use and read my genetic code? My doctor? The police? The chef of my favourite restaurant? Also, what genetic technologies do I want to use? Do I want to clone my dog, choose my children’s eye colour, or genetically modify them to give them extra talents? Do I want others in society to be allowed to do that? The current and future possibilities of human genetics are simply overwhelming. They are both promising and frightening, chilling and delightful.
A story of Shyamal: a runaway, a pickpocket & a tiger's cub.
Billions of years ago, Venus may have harbored life-giving habitats similar to those on the early Earth. Today, Earth's twin is a planet knocked upside down and turned inside out. Its burned-out surface is a global fossil of volcanic destruction, shrouded in a dense, toxic atmosphere. Scientists are now unveiling daring new strategies to search for clues from a time when the planet was alive.
Film in hand. Carnival in the global village.
214 million years ago a gigantic meteorite broke up and impacted Earth. 65 million years ago, the impact that killed the dinosaurs occurred where the country of Belize stands today. 200 thousand years ago early humans were walking and died when they were hit by a 40 meter wide meteorite hit South Africa creating a 1.4 km wide crater. This meteorite fragment, the largest ever found hit Namibia 80 000 years ago and more recently a major impact occurred in Toungouska, Russia in 1908. Every year 10 000 tons of meteoritic matter fall onto Earth in much smaller but not necessarily less influential pieces. This film will explore how the impact of these meteorites big and small through the ages have changed our world and what they brought from outer space with them that may have been the seed of life itself on Earth.
The documentary traces the history and legacy of Poona Guest House, a place situated in the heart of Pune, and how early cinema gave rise to this establishment, its delicious traditional food, and a mother's home to many dreamers.
A misunderstood and isolated transgender teenager takes revenge upon his unaccepting parents. A powerful supernatural entity known as the Bug God contacts him to help him do the deed. A mysterious organization produces a largely fictitious made-for-TV docudrama on the subject.
A glimpse into a visual representation of memory; A Christmas-time series of meals, coffees, and movies, with friends, lovers, and housemates. Faced with the compounding of faces and places, each moment begins to collide with one another: voices are muddled, and faces are broken. How is memory created? How are they separated from one another?
The first feature from Alison McAlpine is a dialogue with the heavens—in this case, the heavens above the Andes and the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, where she alights on the desert- and mountain-dwelling astronomers, fishermen, miners, and cowboys who live their lives with reverence and awe for the skies.
With the banning of the religion in 1972, male Jehovah's Witnesses are made to spend their National Service in the detention barracks for two and a half years or longer. This documentary follows the lives of three male Jehovahs Witnesses and their lives in Singapore as well as the first Witness who was imprisoned in 1972.