THE ARTS CENTER

Shorts Program

ESCAPE FROM EARTH - IMAGINE SCIENCE

ESCAPE FROM EARTH - IMAGINE SCIENCE

Friday, March 3 @ 7:30pm

The Black Box

Past Event

Both scientific discussion and science fiction have long considered that humanity’s future may lie beyond the Earth. Certainly, we will need to look outwards as a species should we desire to outlive our solar system’s sun, if only in another five billion years, but conditions on the Earth itself may encourage an earlier departure. In this program, disastrous developments close to home, both all too real (a public health emergency surrounding waste disposal) and fictional (a mysteriously plummeting birthrate) are juxtaposed against looks outwards into the immensity of the universe, as space programs are prepared and the Voyager probes become the furthest-traveling human-made objects ever. In between these worlds, scientists in orbit consider a troubled planet and interplanetary jazz musician Sun Ra, playing a concert in Egypt, finds disappointment in terrestrial social conditions.

The program is as follows

  • Submarine (21 min / Mounia Akl / Lebanon / 2016)
  • The Last Interview (10 min / Mohamed Haroun Alhamadi / UAE / 2015) Voyagers (15 min / Santiago Menghini / Canada / 2015)
  • Pepsi, cola, water? (9 min / Tom Bogaert / Egypt / 2015)
  • Black (14 min / Tomasz Popakul / Poland / 2016)
  • Shreds (12 min / Luana Bassil/ Lebanon / 2016)
  • Infinitude (5 min / Scott Portingale / Canada / 2016)

THURSDAY, MARCH 2, 7:30PM FEATURE FILM OPENING:

HONEY RAIN & DUST

86 min / Nujoom Alghanem / UAE / 2016

Aisha, Fatima and Ghareeb are amongst the best known honey specialists in the northern parts of the UAE. Ghareeb has established a bee sanctuary a top of one of the mountains, while Fatima and Aisha prefer to roam the mountains. Meanwhile, the bees are coping with climate change and survival challenges. While integral to the lives of Aisha, Fatima and Ghareeb, the bees may not be able to continue providing for long.

ALSO: Post-screening Discussion

FRIDAY, MARCH 3, 11AM & 2PM FAMILY MATINEE:

THE EAGLE HUNTRESS

101 min / Otto Bell / USA / 2016

The Eagle Huntress follows Aisholpan, a 13 year old girl, as she trains to become the first female in twelve generations of her Kazakh family to become an eagle hunger, and rises to the pinnacle of a tradition that has been handed down from father to son for centuries. The story begins after Aisholpan has been training with her father’s eagle for many months. As every eagle can only have one master, the time has come for Aisholpan to capture an eagle of her own.

SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 3PM SHORTS PROGRAM:

INTERIOR / EXTERIOR

How does the inside reflect the outside? Self, image, identity, and physiology exist in complex relationships across the membrane of our skin.

SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 7:30PM FEATURE FILM CLOSING:

IN LIMBO

85 min / Antoine Viviani / France / 2016

A surreal vision of the digitized, quantity ed world, drifting from internet innovators to sterile data centers, as poetically narrated by the internet itself. An experimental documentary, the film features interviews with digital luminaries such as computer pioneer Gordon Bell, Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle, Director of Engineering at Google Ray Kurzweil, among others. ALSO: Post-screening Discussion