Silvia Casalino | 59 min | France | 2011
EAST COAST PREMIERE
SYNOPSIS
“I have always wanted to explore inaccessible and dangerous places. As a child, I dreamed about flying to space. I had often heard that it was a man’s trade, that one shouldn’t have daydreamed. I refused those rules, I had to become a space engineer, I built rockets, I applied to be an astronaut and I was refused. My initial anger passed, I have tried to understand why. Researching the place of women in the space race enabled deeper reflection into the limits of gender and its representations.”
Young space engineer Silvia Casalino dreams about going to space. Her dreams become reality as she embarks on an unusual and bizarre journey, which leads her to the icons of female space travel and cyborg culture. The essayistic documentary, NO GRAVITY is a personal story, but also a broader take on the history of women in space and the relationship between gender and technology.
SCREENING SCHEDULE
Space Confessions, 5th Annual Imagine Science Film Festival
7:30pm | Thursday, November 15, 2012
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY CANTOR CENTER
PRODUCTION CREDITS
Directed by Silvia Casalino
Written by Silvia Casalino
Produced by Perfect Shot Films – 10:15 Productions – ZDF
With : Donna Haraway, Françoise Bories, Claudie Haigneré, Samantha Cristoforetti, Dr. Adilia Kotovskaya , Gene Nora Jessen, Mae Carol Jemison
DIRECTOR’S BIO
Silvia Casalino born in 1971 in Savigliano-Italy has a master degree in Space Engineering and works for the French Space Agency (CNES) in Paris. During her fellowship in 2009 at the ICI Berlin, Institute for Cultural Inquiry, she developed the documentary “No Gravity” about women and space science. She has studied the archives of the U.S., the Soviet, and the European space programs, examined the political controversies that surrounded them and conducted interviews with female protagonists of the space exploration. Beginning of 2010 the project was selected among the five best ideas of “Bodybits – Analogue Bodies in Digital Times,” a competition organized by ZDF “Kleines Fernsehspiel”, in cooperation with “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (Berlin). The filmmaker Lynn Hershmann, director of films dealing with technology, science fiction and feminism, such as “Conceiving Ada” (1997), “Techno Lust” (2002), “Strange Culture” (2007) !Women Art Revolution (2010), is the mentor for this project. In December 2010 the CNC, Centre National du Cinéma, supported the project with the prize: “Aide à la réalisation de court-metrage”.
