Issue

Epidemics and Microfauna

April 2020

The original analog viral media is the virus. Spanish flu, smallpox, ebola, HIV. Throughout history they have co-evolved with humanity with often disastrous consequences. But viruses are not to be outdone by bacteria: cholera and plague have also reached pandemic status. Vaccines, antibiotics, and other medical advances have provided treatment, but the rapid and unpredictable mutation of these highly adaptable organisms makes perfect prevention nearly impossible. As we are now in the unfortunate midst of being reminded. But microfauna can also serve many useful purposes: the bacteria of our microbiome play a key role in our immune defenses against viruses while viruses themselves are deployed by scientists to target genetic interventions. In this issue we'll take a broad look at microbes and parasites, diseases and therapies.

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James (2014)

FILM United Kingdom 2014
Claire Oakley

Gloucestershire, England, 1796. A poor day labourer is offered work but must first let his son be used in a medical experiment for a smallpox vaccine.

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Of Men and Mice

FILM FRANCE 2016
Gonzague Legout

In the heart of Detroit city. As the economic crisis continues to bite, two former employees of a car plant decide to rob the Motorcity Bank, but find themselves trapped by the police. Negotiations will take an unexpected turn.

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Yellow Fieber

FILM Greece 2015
Konstantina Kotzamani

Athens was covered by a strange yellow dust at first everyone thought it was sulfur but a few hours later Yellow Fieber erupted no one expected what was about to happen no one could tell that the city would turn into a forest of palms Yellow Fieber is a story of the loss of a city

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Lively Material

FILM UK 2018
Louise Mackenzie

Lively Material follows a thought from the mind of artist, Louise Mackenzie, into the body of a genetically modified organism, the laboratory workhorse E. coli. The thought is translated by the artist from a spoken phrase, voiced by Mackenzie into a code that becomes represented as physical material

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The Snugglefug

FILM United Kingdom 2018
Lucy Irving

The Snugglefug takes us to an alternate dimension, where a blue bear faces the consequences of her late night drunken internet purchase, from the MysteryOoo company. Littered with references to 80's and 90's creature features and kids TV, it's Jim Henson's puppet-nightmare. Described by some as "lik

Amarillo (Yellow)

FILM United States 2016
Ana Pérez López

The artificial flavor of banana is based on a fruit that no longer exists. Gross Michelle was, until 1960, America's most popular strand of bananas. Its obituary is bleak, gooey, and speaks about the past, present and future global food politics. Director | Ana Pérez López Sound | Laur

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1% Human

FILM USA 2019
Sasha Doppelt David Keltner

1% Human is about coming to terms biologically and psychologically with what it means to be human. Filmmaker and subject Sasha Doppelt searches for solutions to her long-term depression in a human microbiome study. We learn about the bacteria that live on us, and impact our lives in huge ways. We wi

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Parasit (2013)

FILM Germany, Austria 2013
Nikki Schuster

Fast forward. A camera rushes across Argentina´s stone desert toward a cactus and crashes headfirst through an opening into the plant´s interior. There, a view opens up of an eerie universe. Vibrating insect wings beat, swishing against one another, glistening with a toxic beauty, and wi

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Nobody Dies In Longyearbyen

FILM Norway, Svalbard 2018
David Freid

They say that when you're hit by the polar bug, you never leave. Don't say we didn't warn you. Nobody dies in Longyearbyen, or so goes the rumor. We went to the northernmost city in the world to find out why, and stumbled into the first act of a science fiction flick about something deadly, long bur

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Invasion

FILM UK 2015
Anne Milne

Macro, micro, natural, artificial, inside, outside. Invasion is an investigation into the lives of pathogens, bacteria, parasites and other creatures, but not in the way you'd expect. From the air to the lab, we are brought into a world that is claustrophobic and at times frightening. Who is being l

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Mushroom Man

FILM USA 2012
Leslie Iwerks

This is the story of how mushrooms can save the world! Renowned mycologist and mushroom pioneer Paul Stamets harnesses the power of infamous fungi to fight the planet's leading problems, from developing cures for cancer to destroying toxic radioactive waste.

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Cat Days

FILM Germany (Japan) 2018
Jon Frickey

Jiro feels sick. His father takes him to see the doctor. Her diagnosis is harmless, but it shakes the boy's identity.

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Lavender

FILM Australia 2018
Henry Boffin

In the near future a brain deteriorating disease known as the Hebedus virus has swept across the nation, rendering vast swathes of the population into an incurable vegetative state. In order to combat the growing food shortages it has become the norm to slaughter the infected and sell their meat to

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The Resistance

FILM Switzerland 2017
Ave-Lii Idavain

We live with bacteria, but some of them can make us sick. To eliminate the ones causing diseases, we use antibiotics. But what happens if we use antibiotics when they're not required?

Vicarious

FILM United States 2016
Danna Grace Windsor

Two grieving friends pass a long subway ride to a funeral by exchanging haunting visions of an impending outbreak - in which a mandatory skin suit uploads every bodily sensation to a government cloud.

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Fighting the Viral Wars

FILM USA 2013
Chris Sullivan

Using Legos and toy soldiers, UT-Austin biologist Chris Sullivan explains the concept of viral latency, which is a mechanism that certain viruses, including herpes and HIV, have evolved to hide from the host immune response. It's this ability to hide away in a "latent reservoir" that makes it imposs

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Descent (2017)

FILM United States 2017
Peter Burr Mark Fingerhut Forma

In 1562, Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder completed a painting called The Triumph Of Death. In this panoramic landscape the sky is blotted out by black smoke; ships and dead fish litter the ocean shore; and an army of skeletons experiment with myriad death techniques. The living are badly out

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Snowflake Starter

FILM USA 2015
Danielle Parsons

Every snowflake needs a snowflake starter, a tiny solid particle less colloquially known as an ice nucleator. It can be a spec of dust, soot or ash, a piece of pollen or a fungal spore, anything onto which water vapor in a cloud can collect and freeze. Oftentimes, snowflake starters are alive&hellip

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Gut Hack

FILM United States 2017
Mario Furloni Kate McLean

Josiah Zayner, a former NASA scientist turned bio-hacker, seeks to rid himself of ongoing physical ailments by replacing all the bacteria living inside of him with that of a donor's. This method involves, among other things, swallowing pills made of the donor's poop, and scrubbing himself "clean" wi

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Submarine

FILM Lebanon 2016
Mounia Akl

Under the imminent threat of Lebanon's 2015 garbage crisis, Hala, a wild child inside of a woman, is the only one to refuse evacuation, clinging to whatever remains of home. Mounia Akl is a director and writer from Lebanon based in New York with an MFA in Directing from Columbia. Apart from directin

A Nice Place to Leave

FILM Germany 2016
Maya Connors

A journey into the social staging of threat and reassurance. Fragmentary archive footage from the USA of the 1940s/50s and associative images of Hamburg, Germany today are woven together to create an enigmatic narration. We meet silkworms recording memories, family history found on the Internet, pol

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COVID-19

FILM Australia 2020
Andy Thomas

This is a visual exploration of the coronavirus outbreak, with data and videos mixed with animations of the virus and abstract visual interpretations of the virus mutating.

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The Pale Moonlight

FILM Australia 2014
Tin Pang

Set in a dystopian future where the world is dying from a crippling disease, a mysterious figure visits an illegal drug den in the hope of sourcing a rumoured cure, but unwittingly gets caught up in a robbery that could threaten his chances of making it back out alive…

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The Story of Ebola

FILM United States 2015
Yoni Goodman

The Story of Ebola is an animated narrative that was made for "at risk" communities in Africa, especially those populations in West Africa that were affected by the Ebola epidemic. The film makes visible the invisible Ebola germs to help people see and understand how Ebola spreads and how to protect

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Cured (2005)

FILM United States 2005
Gabriel Villanueva

A bizzaire dancing pandemic has afflicted the people of a small beachtown. When one man stumbles upon a cure, he intends on keeping it secret, hoarding the cure for himself and his wife. However, he quickly realizes that keeping it hush-hush will be easier said than done.

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Daughters of Wolbachia

FILM United States 2020
Ariel McCleese

In the wake of a feminist bacterial apocalypse, three women fight to secure domination over man once and for all. Imagine a world in which bacteria kill all males in a species, turn any remaining males into females, and make it possible for virgin females to give birth. That world exists, right bene

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Fever Freaks

FILM Canada - USA 2017
Frédéric Moffet

A detective is hired to find the original copy of a lost ancient book. The book recounts the tale of a plague. A form of radiation, unknown at the present time, activates a virus. The virus affects the sexual and fears centers in the brain and nervous system, fear is converted into sexual frenzies w

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The Border

FILM United Kingdom 2015
Norman Tamkivi

After a global nuclear and chemical war a disciplined military captain Thomas is tasked with toughening up a young and kind soldier Landon, who is unable to shoot innocent people, only to find out the truth about himself and the system he lives in.

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Immunecraft

FILM United Kingdom 2016
Eric Schockmel Megan MacLeod

Adopting the form of a video game trailer, Immunecraft presents a fictional game which gives users agency over a real life cell culture to compete against opponent players. It explores the parallels between popular gameplay mechanics and some of the most important principles of the human immune syst

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El Enemigo (The Enemy)

FILM Brazil 2015
Aldemar Matias

In a fumigation centre in Havana, Mayelín has the thankless task of doling out fines to citizens who have the dengue mosquito in their homes. With a demanding boss and conflictive workers, Mayelín will have to impose her authority to gain respect.