A sampling of recent sci-fi short films from Dust:
** “Planet Unknown” by Shawn Wang
Facing global resource depletion, mankind sends out Space Rovers to find potential inhabitable planet
** 2084 by Taz Goldstein
In the year 2084, the fate of mankind will rest in the hands of a total moron.
** Black Hole by Phil & Olly
If you could move through any solid object, what would you do?
Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker Michael Barnett has a new : Teen rocket scientists star at Sundance’s SLC opening | The Salt Lake Tribune
Space exploration offers humans the chance to survive as a species.
That’s the unifying message offered by Michael Barnett’s “The Mars Generation,” which focuses on the funny, smart teenage wannabe rocket scientists attending the U.S. Space and Rocket Center’s Space Camp. Along the way, the documentary offers an inspiring call to action as it details America’s past and future space dreams.
The Friday night screening marked the Salt Lake City opening of the Sundance Film Festival. The “Mars Generation” premiere on Inauguration Day seemed significant, the director said, because he hopes it will jump-start a conversation about space exploration.
“Now is not the time to become nearsighted about the big idea of becoming interplanetary,” Barnett said. “This film is about the generation who is going to take us to Mars — if they are empowered to do so.”
More at
A press release points me to The New York Sci Fi Film Festival being held this weekend:
This Friday marks the inaugural launch of The New York Science Fiction Film Festival, a new cinematic event debuting January 20-22, 2017 with a highly acclaimed lineup of science fiction, horror, supernatural and fantasy films and virtual reality entertainment. Valuing the importance of filmmakers from all walks of life, the festival presents to audiences modern masterpieces where storytelling transcends expectations and possibilities are endless.
Highlights include the USA premiere of Marcos Machado’s UFO’s in Zacapa (Ovnis en Zacapa) (2016), the NYC premiere of Marco Checa Garcia’s 2BR02B: To Be or Naught to Be (2016) and the East Coast premiere of Ian Truitner’s Teleios (2016). Among its many gems, the festival is also proud to screen Hiroshi Katagiri’s Gehenna: Where Death Lives (2016) starring Doug Jones (Hellboy) and Lance Henriksen (Alien), Lukas Hassel’s Into the Dark (2014) starring Lee Tergesen (The Strain) and a prominent virtual reality block featuring Ben Leonberg’s Dead Head (2016) and Ryan Hartsell’s I’ll Make You Bleed (2016) set to the music of the band These Machines are Winning.
The festival will run on January 20, 2017 at Instituto Cervantes (211 E 49th St, New York, NY 10017), January 21, 2017 at Producers Club (358 W 44th Street, New York, NY 10036) and The Roxy Hotel Cinema (2 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013) and January 22, 2017 at Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Avenue [at 2nd Street], New York, NY 10003).
Lots of space themed entries in the schedule. For example,
TITAN
Dir: Álvaro Gonzalez
12 minutes
Spain, 2015
Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, is the main stage of the Mission Cronos. Orpheus, one of the astronauts who have descended to its surface, is searching for organic life forms. This is his story.
The Last Journey of Paul WR
Dir: Romain Quirot
17 minutes
France, 2015
The red moon threatens the existence of our planet. Mankind only hope lies upon the shoulders of the enigmatic Paul WR, the most talented astronaut of his generation. Mysteriously, a few hours before the mission launch, Paul has disappeared.
TELEIOS
Directed by Ian Truitner
USA, 1 hr 22 minutes
2016
Five genetically engineered “perfect” humans are sent on a rescue mission to Titan, where only one man has survived a ruined expedition to retrieve a vital cargo. Under the stress of isolation in outer space, the five perfect humans begin to exhibit formerly-concealed character flaws that threaten to tear the mission (and their chances for survival) apart.
The new movie Hidden Figures, which portrays the struggles and triumphs of three African-American female mathematicians working for NASA in the 1960s, opened in the US yesterday and is getting excellent reviews:
Here is the official trailer:
Here is a new 20th Century Fox video with some background and brief statements from some of the actors:
This video shows a NASA panel discussion about the women and history depicted in the movie:
NASA kicked off a yearlong centennial celebration for its Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, with events Dec. 1 highlighting the critical work done by the African American women of Langley’s West Computing Unit, a story told in the book and upcoming movie “Hidden Figures”. During a NASA education event that was streamed to schools across the country, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, Film director Ted Melfi, NASA Chief Historian Bill Barry, who consulted on the film, and NASA Modern Figure Julie Williams-Byrd, an electro-optics engineer for the Space Mission Analysis Branch at Langley, discussed the work of past and present NASA figures benefits humanity and enable future long-duration human and robotic exploration into deep space, including the agency’s Journey to Mars.
(The video opens with the movie trailer. The event starts at about 3:05.)
Here is a short interview with mathematician Katherine Johnson, now 98, whose work at NASA was a focus of the movie:
The movie is based on the research of Margot Lee Shetterly, who wrote the just released book, Hidden Figures
This video shows a presentation given by Shetterly in March 2014 at NASA Langley Center in Virginia:
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Three sci-fi short films each with a robot theme: