Playlist
<p>Led by star scientist Eske Willerslev, a team of researchers are sequencing DNA from before the Ice Age for the first time in history. A project that could revolutionise our understanding of the history of life itself.</p>
<p>Two immigrants recount the changes brought about by their journeys to the U.S., paralleling that of cells migrating in response to a wound.</p> <p><em>ISFF13 Symbiosis</em></p>
<p>Superstar scientists Gloria Dominguez-Bello and Marty Blaser confront an international public health emergency - the loss of our ancestral microbes – while three patients with life-threatening diseases triggered by this disruption explore experimental treatments to save their lives.</p> <p>Most people think germs (another word for microbes) are bad for us, but what if they’re mostly good and wiping out the ones inside us is creating a health crisis that threatens humanity’s future?</p> <p>That’s the driving question behind "The Invisible Extinction," a documentary film that follows globetrotting microbiologists Gloria Dominguez-Bello and Marty Blaser on their urgent quest to protect and restore our microbes before it’s too late. Microbes are critical to our development and well-being. The microbiome is all the microbes (bacteria! and fungi! and viruses!) in our bodies that usually keep us healthy. In the last 50 years, we humans have lost 50% of our ancestral microbes with devastating consequences. Gloria and Marty believe this loss has triggered a surge in life-threatening illnesses that barely existed fifty years ago, including obesity, asthma, autism, severe food allergies, and diabetes - and that what's driving this loss is overuse of antibiotics; highly processed foods; a hyper-hygienic lifestyle sealing humans away from animals and plant life; and elective C-sections. The Invisible Extinction follows Gloria and Marty - who are partners in life and the lab - on their urgent quest to reverse this trend, as they conduct groundbreaking research and work with collaborators in Venezuela, China, Israel, Switzerland, and the USA.</p>
<p>Micronauts takes you on a journey into the microcosmos to tell the story of the ancestors of all life on our planet: bacteria. Bacteria shaped the earth's atmosphere 4 billion years ago and kickstarted all other life on our planet, and their invisible hand continues to influence crucial processes within other life forms. The human microbiome, the 8 trillion bacteria we carry around in our gut, is absolutely essential for our survival. But there is one problem with bacteria: they are so small that even the strongest microscopes cannot reveal their true wonder. In this film we follow a team of the best science animators that create the first moving image of a single bacterium on the molecular scale. Besides sharing the latest scientific insights about bacteria, the documentary tries to convey an old wisdom: as above so below. By traveling to the nano level of life one can experience exactly the same awe as traveling space.</p>
<p>The limits of intrusion in the peaceful lives of local folk on the island of Ikaria are being tested in a group of scientists' quest to find the secret for long and healthy life. Islanders go about in their daily microcosms - in the kitchen, in the garden, in the workplace and in their "hangouts", when researchers invade asking for something rather personal. A clash of energies rises between locals and perplexed scientists that leaves no stone unturned, in the attempt to understand frozen time and intriguing idiosyncrasies. A comedic study in pacing and reframing a world view.</p>
<p>Not only is evolution happening right now everywhere around us, but adaptive changes can occur in a population with remarkable speed. This speed is essential if you’re a desert mouse living in an environment where a volcanic eruption can reverse selective pressure in nearly an instant. The film features Dr. Michael Nachman, whose work in the field and in the lab has quantified the selective pressure of predators and identified the genes involved in adaptation. In a complete story, from ecosystem to molecules, pocket mice show us how random changes in the genome can take many paths to the same adaptation—a colored coat that hides them from predators.</p>
<p>Within the human struggle to live and work, and with the materials for survival available for exploitation, seemingly foreign worlds are intertwined in the modern battlefield of patents, ownership, and colonialism. Delving into labor and science practices,<em> A Common Sequence</em> examines who gets to work with the essentials of life — saving animals from extinction, researching medicine, harvesting food, coding the genome — in our modern world controlled by data.</p> <p>Filmmakers Mary Helena Clark and Mike Gibisser take us to the areas and people involved in these physical and political worlds with an intuitive visual style, letting the audience experience each location’s atmosphere. Take the achoque salamander, which can regenerate limbs and even its heart, the intellectual property rights of apple trees, and the commodification of human DNA. The film eloquently guides us through the philosophy of what is “common” to everyone in nature and the complicated pursuits of owning materials of the planet and even our bodies, whether for conservation or for sale. The resulting discussion could change all our lives!</p>