Playlist
The Science New Wave Fund provides support to singular film projects that challenge and expand the role of science in the current cultural discourse and celebrate adventurous interdisciplinary collaboration across disciplines. Discover and check out the evolution of the projects awarded the SNW Fund in Cycle I (2022) + Cycle II (2024).
Discover everything about the Science New Wave Fund—including application details, guidelines, and more—at: sciencenewwave.com/open-calls/snw-fund.
<p>When Luanda is sinking, a grieving young state photographer is assigned to find an eccentric over-suspicious Cuban biologist who disappeared after she joined a secret expedition to find a new capital for Angola thirty years ago.</p>
<p>Scientists are on the cusp of a biomedical and industrial revolution to utilize the strongest material in the world: spider silk. <em>The Gossamer Thread</em> traces the DNA of orb-weaving spiders across the United States on a transgenic journey, from the woodlands of Florida, to goat farms in Utah, and medical labs in California, revealing the complexity of human intervention in the web of life.<br /> </p>
<p>Hybrid: an Interspecies Opera unfolds in 5 movements as we journey from cutting edge genetic engineering to the very origins of pig domestication 10 millennia ago, and back to the wild boars still inhabiting our forests.</p> <p>This documentary and personal narrative is set to an original score by composer Bethany Barrett and presents an intimate account of the interspecies relationship at the heart of the science of xenotransplantation–specifically the genetic engineering of pigs to supply human hearts.</p> <p>The film begins from the question of whether CRISPR gene editing represents a radical rupture or rather a continuation of the millennia old practices of selective breeding. It presents documentary footage from rarely seen porcine research facilities and archaeological archives of early animal domestication at Ludwig Maxilimilians Universität (LMU) Munich and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).</p> <p>The libretto is constructed from the words of key scientists engaged in this new field of research and archaeologists studying the origins of domestication, taken from original interviews conducted by the artist.</p> <p>The film concludes with the creation of a set of memorial sculptures for the pigs we see on screen whose lives are taken to advance science and potentially save human lives. Drawing on cutting edge digital imaging and printing techniques we see the robotic construction of a clay sculpture which ends in flames–fired in a pit in the ground using the earliest of ceramic methods. The ancient and the high tech meet in an artwork that goes beyond simply educating audiences to making them feel the dramatic weight of these new technologies, their complexities and long histories. The result is an impressionistic glimpse of a biomedical field with massive implications for ethics, aesthetics, and the fluctuating state of human/non-human relations.</p>
<p>The film When Land Becomes Earth looks at Earth; as a self-regulating planet; earth as material both multiple and singular; from its granular form to mountains terraformed by extractive technologies. It encounters scientists, farmers and activists working like soil, using nature-based solutions, resisting in determined, communal and beautiful ways, moving towards matters of reparation.</p> <p>The camera drifts dreamily through imagery drawn from landscapes transformed by beavers as nature restorers, industrial wastelands polluted with heavy metals, a community compost project processing food waste, mob-grazing cattle rebuilding the soil health of exhausted farmland, moorland drained after generations of peat-cutting.</p> <p>It shifts from huge expanses of land towards the intimacy of dirt and earth - life held in human hands or the vitality of micro-bacteria invisibly remediating soil polluted with heavy metals. A group of wandering children are tender in their care for each other, seeking shelter, working together for Earthly survival, living well in the ruins.</p> <p>With kind permission of Meredith Monk, we’ve worked with her soul-calling voice to remind us that this could be our Last Song, to embody life’s elemental capacity for repair and care.</p>
<p>Dendelion, Baraban, Léonto and Taraxa, four dandelion achenes rescued from nuclear explosions that destroyed the Earth, find themselves projected into the cosmos. After landing on an unknown planet, they start searching for a suitable soil to perpetuate their species. But they will have to overcome the elements, the fauna, the flora and the changing climate.</p> <p>Rescued from Earth's nuclear annihilation, four friends crash-land on an unknown planet and courageously set out to locate a new home capable of sustaining their species.</p>
<p>This experimental documentary performed with live animation and magic lanterns, within the tradition of scientific lantern lecture, will illuminate the historical context and evolution of medication abortion. For millennia, people worldwide have turned to botanical and traditional medicines for self-managed abortion care. The earliest written record of an abortifacient dates back to an Egyptian medical Papyrus from 1550 B.C.E., prescribing a mixture of dates, honey, fruit of acacia and colocynth. Although some of these treatments came with severe health risks or were ineffective, without a safer alternative, they allowed people to independently manage unwanted pregnancies.</p> <p dir="ltr">As abortion access remains restricted in communities worldwide, especially in areas facing the enduring consequences of colonialism & imperialism, individuals often embrace traditional botanical & herbal methods to maintain reproductive independence. Some scientists advocate for additional research into these traditional medicines to determine safest methods and efficacy, envisioning greater safer reproductive freedom through the use of regional plants. At the same time, an absence of standardized care persists in many communities, and many of the most widely used botanicals pose severe risks of toxicity. In the recent waves of criminalization in the USA, there has been a notable surge in interest in self-managed abortion methods. Thousands have turned to platforms like TikTok for information on antiquated herbal abortifacients, despite warnings from herbalists about their dangers and ineffectiveness.</p> <p dir="ltr">However, the long tradition of abortifacients entered a new era with the arrival of abortion pills in the 1980s. While these pills are available over the counter in some countries, in places like the USA, they are highly restricted, sometimes criminalized, and education about them is actively suppressed. A significant portion of society does not even know these pills exist, let alone how to access them. Fortunately, a network of organizations & activists have continued the tradition of advocating access, regardless of legality. </p> <p dir="ltr">This documentary will include an overview of these histories of abortifacients, which include surprising stories on the ubiquity and moral acceptance of abortion in many regions and times. A featured chapter will be the Victorian-era legislation contemporary to the magic lantern, the Comstock Act, which affects abortion access in the USA today. This history will be traced to modern pills and, in keeping with the legacy of abortifacient recipes, provide resources on legal and illegal channels to access them in the USA, as well as guidance on obtaining these pills affordably or at no cost through abortion funds. </p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; text-align: justify; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'EB Garamond', serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At 8am, Pablo, 10, and Rodrigo 12, set off on foot for school. There are hardly any cars on the dirt road, and the boys' attention is drawn to the unusual company of a macaw, which began interacting with people after losing its partner, electrocuted by high voltage wires. At this time, the father Evandro 51 is already harvesting bananas in the field with other men from the village. Maria 42 stayed at home, she is still recovering from pneumonia. An explosion breaks the morning silence. 200 meters away, a mining company implodes rocks in the search for lithium. We are in the Brazilian backlands, in the state of Minas Gerais. Dust invades Maria's house, the school and the banana plantation. Evandro complains while Carlos 27 gives up, saying that the only way out is to accept the job at the newly opened mine. Through a mainly observational approach, GERAES follows the rapid changing of the landscape of a small community in the Brazilian backlands with the arrival of a wave of lithium mining companies in the region.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'EB Garamond', serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'EB Garamond', serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'EB Garamond', serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">February of 2023, the European Parliament formally approved a law to effectively ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in the European Union from 2035, aiming to speed up the switch to electric vehicles and combat climate change. The magnitude of this remarkable decision is felt worldwide, when the shift to renewable energy and the demand for lithium, a key component in the production of batteries for electric vehicles, has resulted in the effervescence of mining activities.</span></p> <p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.16; text-align: justify; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'EB Garamond', serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Brazil is among the top six countries in global lithium extraction, but still has a large part of its reserve unexplored. The Vale do Jequitinhonha, in the north of the state of Minas Gerais , is the region with the highest concentration of unexplored Lithium in the country and, consequently, the most coveted region by the heated global market, concentrating 78% of the investments. Canada, Australia, US and most recently Saudi Arabia together, announced the investment of over 4 billion dollars in, what they called, Lithium Valley. Elon Musk was closely following the local elections and already bought extensive land in the region. Nineteen new companies are expected to arrive in 2025. COP 30 will happen in November in Amazon having lithium at center stage for multinational mining negotiations and greenwashing lobby.</span><span id="docs-internal-guid-d5a55924-7fff-a305-6bcd-6572960fd9fb"></span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The year is 2097, two decades after the decimation of the city once known as Accra by a rogue network of mercenary drone devices. The office of the Sankofa Corporation, codename for a clandestine techno-anarchist Ghanaian cult disbanded in the late 1970s lies buried underneath the rubble of history. </span></p> <p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> </p> <p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Under cover of night, remains of the group’s last project, a technospiritual weapon to topple the Nkrumah government were discovered and smuggled to a secret location in Lome by Seeker5.6, a 5th generation descendant of the group’s leader. Before Seeker5.6’s disappearance, its parts were dismantled and shipped across the globe, with instructions for reassembly encrypted and transmitted via the archival slipstream, identifiable via the codename sankofa_suite_4.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12px; background-color: #ffffff;">Logline: On an overdue return to their homeland, a non-binary Chinese American escapes their overprotective maternal family to embark on a surreal journey through rural China to find their estranged father whose life was entwined with the extinction of the Yangtze River dolphin.</span><br style="clear: both; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="clear: both; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12px; background-color: #ffffff;">In an immersive journey where the land herself becomes a character, </span><em style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">When The River Split Open</em><span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12px; background-color: #ffffff;"> is a road movie that brings audiences on a poignant journey that confronts family secrets, climate justice, grief and the search for love and belonging in a rapidly changing world. </span></p>
<div class="gmail_default" style="color:#222222; font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:small"><span style="color:#222222; font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:small">The mysterious early return of four astronauts from Venus coincides with increasingly strange phenomena on Earth, as the sun refuses to set and everyone wonders if this could be the beginning of the end.</span></div> <p> </p>
<p>This film explores grief and loss through a variety of subjects—a cemetery surrounded by shopping malls, a plastic-free laboratory, a hoarder's unopened online purchases, and the sudden death of a loved one. It delves into what humans hold onto and what we cannot let go of.</p>
<p>A bite-sized animated series about plants that have changed the course of history. Each episode presents an enticing kernel of botanical intrigue and how it has shaped the world as we know it. This pilot first episode delves into the salubrious uses and nefarious misuses of castor beans throughout history.</p> <p>Each following episode will address a different species and their influence. Possible future episodes include Cotton, Bananas, Chili Peppers, Vanilla, Coffee, Pineapples, Cocoa, Tobacco, Apples, Sugar cane, or Asparagus.</p>
<p><em>Certain Portions of Matter </em><span style="background-color:transparent; color:#000000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:12pt">is a hybrid film that creates a manifold portrait of physicist Albert A. Michelson, whose experiments are cited as those which led to the disappearance of the luminiferous aether, a postulated cosmological medium necessary to explain the propagation of light, prevalent in the physics community through the early 20</span><span style="background-color:transparent; color:#000000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:12pt"><span style="font-size:0.6em">th</span></span><span style="background-color:transparent; color:#000000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:12pt"> century. Beginning as an adaptation of the existing biography </span><em>The Master of Light</em><span style="background-color:transparent; color:#000000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:12pt">, written by Michelson’s daughter (Dorothy Michelson Livingston), the film will transform over the course of its run-time into something more speculative, blending historical research, reperformance, fictional, and auto-fictional elements in order to construct a layered essay wherein the aether is explored in its historical context and simultaneously as an actual substance and metaphor for loss, both personal and environmental.</span></p>
<p>Where does the frequency of a body go when it dies? </p> <p>Part of an ongoing series of short films on climate, grief and hope, WITHIN, FROM BELOW explores the relationship between our bodies and the ocean through sound, from scientific and metaphysical perspectives.</p> <p>Centring on the industrialised Belgian North Sea coastline, the film interweaves anthropogenic noise and sounds of coastal landscapes — including sounds that are usually inaudible to the human ear — with sensorial imagery where bodies and water merge in fluid textures.</p> <p>Scientific insights on underwater noise pollution are in dialogue with transcendental perspectives on the therapeutic potential of particular frequencies on our physical forms — which too are bodies of water, like the ocean and the living beings that inhabit it.</p>
<div class="ZqLLimWfQILfPnsVlRkM"> <p>The Cave Without a Name is an intersectional ecofeminist film exploring nocturnal forms of resistance to 24/7 capitalism. In dialogue with Black feminist theory, Indigenous cosmologies, and activist histories, The Cave Without a Name takes viewers on a journey from a dystopian world of light pollution, overwork, and sleeplessness, to an appreciation of night and nocturnal life as reservoirs of resistance and healing.</p> <p>Drawing from the atmospherics of punk music and art horror–genres that have embraced night as a time to confront repressed truths that haunt everyday life–this essay film braids together the DarkSky movement’s efforts to protect darkness; a night worker’s efforts to restore her circadian rhythm; the preservation of bat habitats; and more metaphorical perspectives on night and nocturnal life that range from rest activism and the idea that “rest is resistance;” to feminist Take Back the Night protests; to dream analysis; and the night as a time for creative production.</p> <p>Informed by texts like Jonathan Crary’s 24/7: Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep, and Tricia Hersey’s Black feminist manifesto Rest as Resistance, the film’s night creatures and dedicated dreamers open onto broader existential questions about human and nonhuman life and our inextricably intertwined fates.</p> </div>
<p><span style="color:#000000">A woman talks to us from inside a machine that records her brain activity. She describes a men- tal labyrinth combining an old amusement park called Dreamland, 19th-century dream photo- graphs, contemporary experiments in mental de- coding using AI, and Prophetic, a start-up whose goal is to control dreams. But what do our dreams see when they look back at us? like moths to light is a meditation on the future of our dream worlds </span><span style="font-size:small"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="background-color:#ffffff"><span style="color:#000000">in the age of neurocapitalism.</span></span></span></span></p> <p>Credits:</p> <div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px; text-align:start; text-indent:0px">Cinematography: Artur Pol Camprubi</div> <div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px; text-align:start; text-indent:0px">Edition : Dina Ekchajzer</div> <div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px; text-align:start; text-indent:0px">Sound by : Laura Tomas</div> <div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px; text-align:start; text-indent:0px">Music by : Hara Alonso</div> <div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px; text-align:start; text-indent:0px">Image: Colour, black and white - 1.85:1</div>