September 28, 2014

Science Film Festivals Across the Pond Abundant in October

If you are in Paris, Bristol or Vienna over the next month, you might consider adding a science film festival to your agenda! First, Pariscience International Film Festival will be held from 2nd to 7th October at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris.

By Joanne Manaster

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

If you are in Paris, Bristol or Vienna over the next month, you might consider adding a science film festival to your agenda!

First, Pariscience International Film Festival will be held from 2nd to 7th October at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. This is a yearly event that features films from all over the world about all fields of science and engineering.

57 films have been selected, 22 from foreign countries and 28 films unreleased in France!
Two international competitions:
• Competition Science Television in which 12 films will compete for three prizes, awarded by a jury composed of personalities of science, audiovisual and media.
• Competition Grand Ecran in which 5 films will compete for a prize, awarded by a jury composed of personalities of Science and audiovisual.
More than a 100 guests will do us the honor of participating (scientists, directors and producers) and many special sessions will punctuate this 10th edition.

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I particularly like that Pariscience is going to set up live tweet sessions with scientists! Every day during the festival, two scientists will answer to the Internet users' questions. You will ask your questions with the #Pariscience hashtag.

Here is a trailer for one of 57 films to be featured: Check out "Expedition to the end of the world"

The submissions come from all over the world and I saw that the particle physics favorite, "Particle Fever", is included as a submission! You can discover the full line-up HERE

If you are in Bristol, UK, you could visit the Wildscreen Film Festival, October 19 - 24 2014. This is an international festival of film, television and digital media inspired by nature and natural places. This year, Sir David Attenborough is a special guest as is PsiVid's own Carin Bondar. Check out "David Attenborough's Rise of Animals: From the Seas to the Skies Trailer"

More videos can be found on their youtube channel

And finally, Bio-fiction 2014: The second Synthetic Biology Film Festival They will feature shortlisted and awarded films be between October 23-25, 2014, at the Museum of Natural History in Vienna, Austria. This year they received exactly 100 film submissions from 17 different countries and 4 continents!

BIO·FICTION explores the emerging field of synthetic biology from different disciplinary angles including science and engineering, social science, cultural studies, amateur biology, film makers, artists and designers. We will have presentations, panel discussions, do-it-yourself biology demos, performances, art work and of course film screenings. It features short films on any aspect of synthetic biology, including documentary films, animation, (science) fiction etc.
The first festival was held in Vienna, Austria, in 2011, when it received 130 short films from 26 countries, of which a jury selected 52 films, and awarding 5 films with major awards.

You can view this year's program HERE

Check out the winner of the Animation Prize in 2011: "Bruce" by Tom Judd

More videos from that year can be found HERE

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