When it comes to filmmaking, a few fields of science tend to steal the spotlight. Mutant DNA and space exploration offer inarguably exciting possibilities for plotline and memorable visuals, but we believe that any subject can prove equally inspiring when you really delve into it. Even the seemingly static worlds of geology and mineralogy. For Earth is primarily a mineral body -- our world of biological life is only tiny outer covering beyond which many secrets lie. Beneath our feet a multitude of elemental dramas play out: matter in transformation, crystal growth, concentrated energy, volcanic shifts, radioactive isotopes. So for this issue we unearth gems from across inorganic cinema, from speculative crystallography to familial diamond procedurals to seismic documentary.
"The journey proceeds on desertic lands. Starting with the laborers quarrying red dirt at open-air mines, it follows the iron ore all the way to the ocean, aboard the world's longest train. At the end, the wrecks scattered on the beach announce the voyage's end. Meanwhile, bound for prosperous count
2053. Four astronauts, assisted by a robot, are on a two-year mission in an subterranean base on Mars. An unexpected discovery puts them face to face with a grave responsability with regard to Earth. They then start falling prey to violent hallucinations.
An archive of stone memory. Mapping time with geological media. Fumbling to reach through time to the things themselves.
Mined, extracted, and woven, asbestos was the magic mineral. Towns became cities under its patronage, Persian kings entertained guests with its fireproof nature, and centuries of industry raked in the profits of its global application. We now live in the remains of this toxic dream, a dream that wit
A take on our future told through the voice of hybrid creatures.
65 million years ago, a rock of unknown origin travelled through space to percute the Earth to put an end to three quarters of the life on the planet. At the region of the impact, a group of searchers venture into the darkness of a Mayan cave to explore the acoustics of the place. They set in a stra
The 2028 Mid August Day Lunar Mineral Parade is a speculative event which takes place in the newly formed Lunar Economic Zone, an administrative agglomeration of Shenzhen and the Moon, on August 15, 2028. Coordinated by Zhan Wang, the event is designed to be seen by the mechanical eyes of the world'
"Metamorphism" is a creative reflection on resource extraction and its effects on the environment. It focuses on mining slag waste from the Blinman Copper Mine in the Northern Flinders Ranges of South Australia, as a way of imaging the incredible forces human society and technology exert upon the ea
Iridescent waves, geometrical gardens, and spiraling sand dunes found in the landscapes of a crystal's microscopic structure. Made possible at the RISD Nature Lab
Three video sequences go against each other, into a three splinter in distant world. By looking up, the film travels through places to which the strength is be able to create another imaginary realm; a territory is strongly damaged by human hand, where is a probable generative act, in reality there
A trip towards abstraction, as a hypothesis on how mountains might have been formed.
Nicolas Steno a Danish scientist and religious person, faces himself with doubts and new scientific discoveries about the planet we live in. Wisdom Teeth is based on the research done by the danish scientific Nicolas Steno(1638-1686) on geology. It was filmed in Piedemont, Italy, where the first edi
The video combines a recollection of visual memories of a blind person with close-ups of transparent minerals. The images work almost as a setting design open to different interpretations: as to see something presuming being something else.
In Southern Iran, in the province of Khuzestan, in a stark and mineral landscape, a woman breaks rocks off a cliff, using only the strength of her arms and a crowbar as a tool. She lives there, in a hut made of stones dug out of the rock. Her day-to-day life is divided between the care she provides
The molecular structure of precious opal is a record of the peaceful and orderly deposition of perfectly rounded spheres of silica over millions of years. Opal contains more water than any other gem, also contributing to the unique activity of light inside the stone. Light passing through the layers
Meteors and lunar rocks seen through a microscope slowly morph into an interstellar landscape.
An experimental documentary, The Lanthanide Series examines the materiality of the digital world, combining approaches of non-fiction narrative essay, abstract visual and sound exploration, and the history of black mirrors. Each chapter of the film is based on one of the fifteen metallic chemical el
"Every morning when I go out of the door, he is the first one I see. He is the first to tell me good morning." "He is a father. Although he is destroying us, he does not kill us." The villages of 'Chã das Caldeiras' lie inside the crater of the volcano 'Pico do Fogo' in Cabo Verde. After losi
A short macro sci-fi journey to planet nine. Alien worlds created by taking a closer look at our own.
It is the tragedy of children forced to work at the coal mines in the town called Tur/Samangan Afganistane, a place unheard to many
Echo 1, alone, guided by radio, makes archaeological excavations in search of traces of human life. Imprisoned between the post-apocalyptic infinity of an arid universe and the cramped confinement of a rustic shelter, his only escape lies in the dreamy contemplation of simple and majestic nature.
A volcano is where Earth delivers up its messages: tectonic movements, harmless vapors, toxic acids, scalding minerals and the possibility of new geography. Basalt becomes infrastructure, architecture or souvenirs. Divieto 2 (2018) follows a team of INGV volcanologists to their data centers near the
Cosmorama observes the world such as it doesn't seem to us, making an inaccessible strata of the luminous spectre visible. Shot near an observatory, the film uses an infrarouge imagery process with which astronomers usually observe objects of deep space. The film creates the conditions of a tangible
The Greek island of Syros is visited by a series of unexpected guests. Immutable forms, outside of time, aloof observants to our human condition.
Amber is renowned for its beautiful preservation and arguably the most valuable scientific collection lives in the American Natural History Museum. Dr David Grimaldi and Paul Nascimbene share their passion for amber in this film, which looks at the millions of years old specimens inside as well as t
Oscillating between aesthetic and documentary forms, KALTES TAL describes the daily business of a strip mine harvesting lime. The material removed is processed and returned to nature through forest liming. This measure attempts to counteract acid rain that troubles the forest floor. A cycle like a M
Where Shapes Comes From is a moving image work which considers how science translates nature, on an atomic scale. Filmed in the mineral sciences laboratory at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, a scientist goes about his daily work in rock and mineral preparatory labs; cutting up large meteo
A jeweler tells his children the story of diamond. An existential perspective of the history of the precious stone, supported by the voice of a storyteller prone to digress…