The Ecosystem

After he traveled to the city on foot, the mathematician stuck his gaze onto the overpasses, cable-stayed bridges, and even light beams randomly colliding at night. When he's finally tired of only seeing things on the ground, he decided to take off from a bridge, and hunt his "angles" while cruising

Julie is in the middle of her study on how robots in the future would be able to sense touch, sense pain and heal themselves. As humans and technology are entangled in each other's growth, traits from both worlds have been merging. This dream experiment lets us explore Julie's subconscious mind and

After discovering some undeveloped negatives that belonged to his grandfather, the filmmaker begins an investigation to dig up the stories of his ancestors, driven by the question of how the past influences the present and the fragility of memory, which disintegrates over time. An exploration about

WINNER OF SYMBIOSIS 2024 Noumenon (noun) a "thing-in-itself" — an objective reality that will always be inaccessible to human perception." – Immanuel Kant Noumenon is an experimental short film reflecting on the relation between reality and perception from a neuroscience perspective, and

A single-channel video with stereo audio taken with trinocular microscope with camera. The video shows various pills dissolving in acidic water, mimicking the pH level of stomach acid. The imagery reflects the process of how pills break down within our bodies.

Through the prism of big data, psychometrics, micro-targeted surveillance and advanced techniques of persuasion, nix contemplates Donald Trump's 2016 U.S. Presidential election victory and our dystopian present and "big-brotherish" future. The film's central voice is that of Alexander Nix , the CEO

Artist Xin Liu combines the tools of art and science to express what it means to be human in the face of technologies and developments motivated by efficiency, productivity, and optimization. Documenting Liu's process as she works toward two solo exhibitions in Texas and New York, this short film pr

A whale existed 5 million years ago. Mark found her skeleton and decided to reassemble the pieces in a dusty basement of the Science Museum in Brussels. A filmmaker found Mark and decided to film him, the whale, and the dust. While these bones are put back together, like pieces from a puzzle, we try

A woman dreams of a future economic crisis affecting the cryptocurrency market. Thousands have been cryogenized, awaiting better times. Are they suspended, or are they falling into the void?

Still lives of real fruit meet botanical illustrations of plant galls to expose the paradox of dissection: each time we cut something in two, we merely create a new exterior.

An intergalactic consortium has sent a volunteer scientist into the past to understand the planktonic ecosystem that existed on the planet before the exodus. He explores the ancient Earth, collects water samples and discovers similarities between the microscopic world and the infinite universe.

A story about love, loss, and knitting. – Samah Ali

The Wife of Them All follows a family as they critique and move beyond borders, mad bureaucracy and precarious work. The film lies at the intersection of documentary and science fiction and weaves a heist plot unique in addressing the global fertility market in relation to migratory control. It brin

The regeneration process of the flatworm, set to the eighteenth-century myth of the Rotte river.

Arremonops rufivirgatus is a science fiction project that explores the ambiguous human histories surrounding the discovery of the bird known as the Olive Sparrow (Arremonops rufivirgatus), as part of the westward expansion in the "wilderness" beyond the Mississippi river. The project investigates th

In 1938, the Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin coined the term 'chronotope' to describe the role time and space plays in literature. In 1985, the American astronomer, Carl Sagan testified before congress on the threat of climate change to life on Earth and the need for the world's government

The Gran Chaco is a dry sub-tropical woodland covering more than one million square kilometers across Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina. It is among the regions experiencing the highest global rates of deforestation for large-scale agriculture. I began working with campesino families living in the Ch

At the southern edge of their range, salmon on the central coast of California feel the effects of climate change more drastically than their northern relatives. After the devastating wildfires of 2020, stewards, scientists, and fish enthusiasts in Santa Cruz County work to restore local steelhead a

RUNNER-UP - SYMBIOSIS 2024 _unquantifiable_ presents a week-long observational study of Homo sapiens, focusing on individual H.2218, a human being in an urban setting. Using three methodologies — systematic behavioral observations, a neural-psycho resonance interface, and subjective interviews

A self-isolated young human known as "James" delves into the hidden world of microscopic organisms, forging a tender connection with these nearly invisible creatures and developing a massive online following, as he seeks to understand his own place in the cosmos and accept the scars of his past. "A

After their friend and roommate abruptly moves out, microbiology student Darcy becomes mesmerized by a telescope they left behind. Moving between details too small to see and a cosmos too large to understand, an absence still remains. They must greet it on their own terms.

A contemplative film about the boundaryies between natural and technological beauty. Can an AI-generated image recreate the beauty of a flower? In 1772, artist Mary Delany imitated flowers through decoupage. By pasting together hundreds of paper cuttings, she managed to depict flowers with exquisite

In a center for animal behavior research, humans conduct astonishing experiments with insects. As witnesses to these experiments, our perception of these familiar animals is gradually transformed.

Emotions are like invasive species in nature. There are a lot of them. We humans are one of them too. How we as humans deal with our emotions? we let them invade us, and at that same moment they become a part of us. Then we start living with them, morphing into our new shapes, shedding our past exis

Tina and her elderly dog MeeMoo discover a clinic promising human-to-pet communication. However, two sinister doctors uncover a bond between them so strong, it transcends time and space. They might be the key to something greater, but at what cost?

Earth is experiencing its final winter. A streaming company hires all available camera operators to film the final weeks of this soon-to-be-lost season. After seeing their footage as a form of ecological exploitation, the camera operators refuse to commodify further climate collapse with their labor

Young women on a remote island off Iceland help lost puffins, who easily lose their bearings. – DeWitt Davis

Bad trip is a very unpleasant experience induced by psychedelics that often resembles being in hell. The outcome is not necessarily traumatic. Integrating the event may have a positive psychological impact of getting closer to the essence of being. The respondent tells her story about a rough bad tr

Unorthodox, volatile, aromatic materials are a staple of artist Anicka Yi's practice, using living matter like bacteria or worms, medical tools like ultrasound gel, and everyday substances like glycerin soap. The film documents how Yi runs her studio like a laboratory, developing hypotheses, testing

Surface Séance puts perception to the test courtesy of the inertia of the eye, aka persistence of vision. Split seconds of the outside world occasionally pierce the darkness, glimpses of the night seen through subway windows and tram doors flash onto neon-lit zones, everyday signage, logos an

A new father visits the hometown of his mother in 1976, accompanied by his wife and baby. At the same time, the NASA Viking lander is sending the first images back to Earth from the surface of another planet. Using the father's travel journal as a guide, and re-contextualizing archival footage and p

'Interfacing' explores research into lipid membranes at The Biophysical Sciences Institute, University of Durham. In the film, scientists speak about unexpected outcomes in their experiments, and the roles of chance and creativity in their work. Creative coding methods are combined with scientific m

In a realm of suspension, two naturalists women study plants in the digital age. They are gradually contaminated by a green fluidity.

Molecular Delusions is a tale of illusion and an exploration of new, possible worlds.

Ommatidia is an experimental tutorial on genetically manipulating the retina of fruit flies to alter signals from the eye to the brain. This hybrid documentary depicts the perspective of the neuroscientist and the fly as they meet eye to eye. Credits Created by Jaime Sunwoo and Sromana Mukherjee Ori

Around the horizon of a black hole, an edge of the universe, light is captured, spun into orbit by the black hole's powerful gravitational pull. Lying within the orange donut in the famous first image of a black hole, this "photon ring" would be a prize to measure—it would reveal the nature of

One blink, one lost image. Another one, another lost image. And so on thousand times a day. This is the story of a man marked by lost images from his life.

In her masterful 16mm ethnographic essay, the director investigates the story of an early twentieth century botanist Ida Hayward, who discovered peculiar connections between sheep's wool, migratory plant seeds and the River Tweed in Scotland. An extremely well made film about a surprising confluence

Look into the eyes of a horse and know that you are looking at an intelligent and sensitive animal. If a horse is an animal, what are we? "Why am I me and why not you?" (voice over 'No horses on Mars') We experience a trailer ride on the highway and wake up from anesthesia in a veterinary clinic. 'N

'Where Can We Be Found?' focuses on the state of Lebanese Cedar trees ('Cedrus libani') in Lebanon today, exploring the various ecologies that the tree inhabits and co-inhabits. The work distinguishes the tree as an ecological being from the various ways in which it has been used as an emblem and ot

Hawaiian microbiologist Kiana Frank takes us to a sacred fish pond and explains how traditional knowledge and microbiology can work together to help us understand how to care for and manage the land.

A lost and amnesiac narrator explores the toxic and alien waterways of New York City in order to discover his relationship to this environment and what it means to be human.

The Brain—is wider than the Sky— For—put them side by side— The one the other will contain With ease—and you—beside— Emily Dickinson A sociologist and a neurologist walk into a park…and a meditation on the mind's ability to meet obstacles and form new

A team of scientists explore the vanished island of Testerep off the Belgian coast. Traditional excavations are combined with advanced technologies, like computer simulations and sound wave analyses, to trace the coastal evolution over 5,000 years. As researchers decode the mysteries, they contempla

In the middle of an Irish peat bog, the inexplicable remains of a humpback whale are discovered by two rural women. Drawn into the mystery of how and why it has appeared, they soon realise the whale is exerting its own magnetic force; summoning the ghosts of lifeforms and ecosystems obliterated in t

Unhindered AI explores how AI systems process images and how the technology of 'machine learning' is enabling computers to understand and generate human language. "UnhIndered AI "- Heidi Stokes ( Director Artist Animator ) in collaboration with Mercedes Bunz ( Professor in Digital Culture and Societ

'In the Atom' explores the strangeness inherent in both the human condition, and within the structure of reality. A dialogue between British Quantum physicist Sebastian, Japanese artist Hanae, and future beings. Through chimeric visuals and poetic narrative, the film examines the arcane role of obse

The visual Umwelt of a mythic, chimerical bird-snake. Imagine what the world looks like through the eyes of the plumed serpent. What would happen if you add up the optical sensitivities of a bird that can see into the ultraviolet and a snake that can sense infrared. You could get something as in thi

A resurrected mammoth tells her story of escaping from the Pleistocene Park to hide in an abandoned coal mine, where she expects her natural death.

Schlafsand (the sand that makes us sleep) is here our refutation of the existential threat linked to human induced climate change. Shot in Switzerland, a land famous for its breathtaking mountain landscapes and its comfortable living standards, the film investigates the visual evidence of this denia

While on the search for a secret hidden river, a filmmaker unravels how and why he makes secrets.

Set in Tucson, Arizona "Log from site A" is a short experimental documentary about science and the use of deconstruction and fragmentation to understand relationships. Two students study the toxicity of Sonoran Desert toads in the midst of a dry year, lacking monsoon rains. This is the flip-book of

With lyrics translated from an imaginary language, Sonia Oleniak's filmic song cycle follows a cohort of sleepless solitaries through the night of a lunar eclipse. Strange singing and luminous images make mythopoesis of their labors and losses. In a boardwalk café, they convene for respite fr

In This Room Everywhere is a tiny poetic glimpse into the elusive dark matter - a hypothetical form of matter that is unseen but thought to be present all over our universe. It only interacts with gravity, it doesn't absorb, reflect or emit light. Dark matter is also story of movement – its pr

Quadratura is the first video - signed by Sara Bonaventura - taken from the album Quasai, by the sonic artist, performer and independent researcher Francesco Fonassi (Spettro, Villa Recordings, Canti Magnetici), composed at the EMS in Stockholm on Buchla 200 synthesizers, produced and mixed by Fonas

As a tree muses on their role in the Order of Things, this being (which humans normally think of as immobile) reveals the speed, agility, and finesse integral to their experience of the world. Adapted from a short story written by Ursula LeGuin, this decidedly inhuman filmic narrative uses the overl

A weapon beams a dazzling light towards earth. The night is extinguishing, the earth is burning, the creatures flee towards the bottom of the world.

" No two plants are exactly alike. They're all different, and as a consequence, you have to know that difference. I start with the seedling and I don't want to leave it. So I know every plant in the field. I know them intimately. And I find it a great pleasure to know them. " - BARBARA McCLINTOCK To

Prior to the nineteenth century, western philosophers thought of eyes as broadcast centers, producing images of the world. As this perceived center of the universe shifted away from humans, and the earth, it became more difficult to see the natural world exactly at the moment that industrial society

Five stories of migration encountered in and on the way to Vilnius, Lithuania, during the so-called invasion of killer slugs and Belarus-European Union border crisis (September 2021). Filmed as a slow crawl through a series of portals in Unity game engine. A series of connecting monologues about mig

What does it mean to represent the visual traces of environmental destruction? How to communicate the temporality of global heating in a time-based medium? These are the questions tackled by Michaela Grill and Karl Lemieux's experimental documentary exploring permafrost thaw and its effects on diver

The first half tells the story of two twins who jump into a traversable wormhole to escape a war. They do not die; one is revered, and the other is revised. The image was shot on a 16mm Bolex and music was recorded on Buchla easel synthesizer. The second half features interviews with two experts in

How is the world seen by an island – a place made of multitudes, living and nonliving? The space and time through multispecies viewpoint is infinitely complex and narrowing it down to linear film might seem impossible. Island of Multitude gets entangled in the island's complex world following

‬Filmed in the Arctic, Eventual Horizon threads together the artist's experience of insomnia, grief, and hope. In this viscerally engaging film, a parallel is made between the experience of mourning a loved one and ecological degradation. Perceiving grief as an active element of hope, Eventual Horiz

The Camembert cheese is going to disappear soon. How can it be ? A story of molds that gives us a lesson about biodiversity preservation. A film with Tatiana Giraud (CNRS, France), Jeanne Ropars (CNRS, France) and Joëlle Dupont (MNHN, France).

The Arctic is the region of our planet most affected by climate change. Sea ice is melting, coastlines are eroding, permafrost is thawing, and as a result, ecosystems are changing rapidly. The animated short "Arctic Shifts" asks the viewer to consider the connection between our human activity and th

I am a filmmaker. And a projectionist. Mostly I am a projectionist who doesn't have time to make films. I projected so many images that my body got sick, severe chronic gastritis. I had to swallow a camera to see what was wrong inside me. The images that got me sick are the images that will help to