| Science Film Festival at Cambridge |
| Saturday, 10 February 2007 | |
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Film festivals are well known events, whereas science film festivals are less so. However, there are various science film festivals taking place around the world, screening science education films that raise awareness about scientific and environmental issues. One example is SCINEMA in Sydney, which incorporates a variety of films and also organizes discussions about scientific film. These events are intended to serve as a tool for communication between scientists and the public. SCINEMA is a travelling film festival, screening some of its films in different cities, even countries. In 2006, SCINEMA made it to Cambridge. At Cambridge, the CUSP film crew produces various science related recordings and films each year. However, until recently, a science film festival had not been organized at the University of Cambridge. In Michaelmas Term 2006, I contacted the director of SCINEMA, Cris Kennedy, about showing some of the films from the 2006 SCINEMA festival at the University of Cambridge. The screenings, the first showing of SCINEMA in Britain, were supported by the Cambridge University Scientific Society and the Graduate Union, who provided the facilities and advertising for Cambridge’s science film event. Subsequently, I spoke to Cris Kennedy about SCINEMA and science film festivals in general. What are you trying to achieve with SCINEMA? We just want to make science accessible. Bringing two fields together, we hope to create new audiences for both filmmaking and the sciences. We have a wonderful partner in Cosmos Magazine, and together, we hope to build SCINEMA into an international festival that will raise the profile of science filmmaking and reward excellence in the field. We run a short film competition for students, to promote interest in science and build up the numbers of students enrolling in science subjects in high school. In Australia, we are a part of National Science Week. How long has the film festival been running for? This will be our seventh year running SCINEMA. It began in 2000 as an epic event at a local Canberra cinema, with paid entry. The big draw card the first year was called Sexy Skivvy Science, and featured the two stars of The Curiosity Show, a 1970s Aussie children’s science show. The presenters were famous for their colourful skivvies, way before The Wiggles made them famous all over again. Our second festival was a much lower-profile event, just a few screenings at the National Museum of Australia, and progressively we’ve built up into a national event... and now, international. Do the screenings attract many viewers? Our 2006 Festival screened at 90 venues across Australia and New Zealand, to over 10,000 people. Some venues are small: local libraries, schools, town halls in regional centres, where only two or three people might be at a screening. We’re also in major venues like Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum and the National Museum of Australia. What are the plans for the future of SCINEMA? World domination! SCINEMA is really a labour of love; just a bunch of people who like science and film, putting it all together in our spare time and using resources borrowed from our understanding companies. We dream of a nice big fat sponsor that would allow us the luxury of working on it full-time. There are so many things we could do with it: podcasting films, live streaming and online voting. These would make it truly an international festival. Are there plans to show the festival’s films in the UK as well? I’m chuffed enough that you guys at Cambridge saw them. We’ve put the Festival together so that it’s very easy for any group or venue anywhere to take part. We compile our films onto a set of DVDs and produce a generic programme, so anyone with the drive to put the screenings on can take them anywhere... I’d love to see SCINEMA Reykjavik, Edinburgh, Dubrovnik... Are you aware of any other similar science film festivals? There’s quite a list of science-themed film festivals, the biggest of which is Images Et Sciences, which the French government seem to put a lot of money into. It’s a biennial event that screens in the theatre on the Eiffel Tower.Any festival would find it hard to top that for a sexy location. What would be your message to the Cambridge students interested in making science films? If you’re interested in filmmaking, my only advice is to get out there and make films. Learning on the job is the only way to learn, and technology has become so cheap and accessible that filmmaking isn’t an elitist art form any more, rather an expression tool for the common man. Look at the YouTube phenomenon. As a science communicator, it really excites me to see people using film, using Flash, using YouTube; telling their stories and finding an audience. If you’re interested in science and film, like I am, then drop me a line.We could use a helping hand putting SCINEMA together, no matter where you are. Mico Tatalovic is a PhD student in the Department of Zoology |
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