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Festival Schedule
8 days / 28 programs

Learn more about this year's festival.
Check out the film lineup.
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All films and conversations will be streaming on Labocine.
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You will be able to access films & programs at start time.
All films are limited for viewing in the United States.
A few will be limited to New York and indicated.
Conversations will be available worldwide.

A limited selection of films will also be available worldwide in
Playlist "ISFF13 Worldwide."

Friday, October 16
Day 1
6:30pm
6:30pm
Festival Kick-off
Opening Remarks & Special Thanks!
Symbiosis Announcement

Surprise Nobel Visit:
"I am a mobile element"
30-min Interview with
2020 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Emmanuelle Charpentier
❂ Watch on Labocine | RSVP
7:00pm
7:00pm
Picture A Scientist
Feature film
Conversation with directors Ian Cheney & Sharon Shattuck
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Ever wonder why female scientists are still a minority in the U.S.? In their eye-opening documentary "Picture a Scientist," directors Sharon Shattuck and Ian Cheney employ well-chosen personal histories and statistical data to investigate the issue and suggest ways to ameliorate the situation
10:00pm
10:00pm
Earth
Several billion tons of earth are moved annually by humans – with shovels, excavators or dynamite.
Saturday, October 17
Day 2
11:00am
11:00am
Animals Speak Up
Shorts film program / Science for Nanos (kid-friendly)
Q&A with directors
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How well do we understand the animal realm: their behaviors, sounds, and patterns? If animals adopted a semi-human condition and could speak, would we listen to what they had to say? With these seven short films we invite you to see the world from their perspective.

Something to Remember (Något att minnas) - Niki Lindroth von Bahr, Sweden, 2019, 5 min. - New York Premiere
Bend or Break - Isaac Kerlow, Singapore, 2019, 3 min.
Mirror Test - Duncan Marquiss, UK, 2019, 6 min. - East Coast Premiere
Smiles - Steven Bednar, USA, 2019, 11 min.
The Whelming Sea - Sean Hanley, USA, 2020, 28 min. - World Premiere
Clebs (Mutts) - Halima Ouardiri, Canada, 2020, 18 min.
1:00pm
1:00pm
The Fine Line Between Borders
Shorts film program
Q&A with directors
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How are limits defined and what is their power? Change, whether it be in territories, landscapes, weather, matter, or communication, has a meaningful impact on the dynamics of the world. From stormy shorelines to extraterrestrial communication, these short films explore the subtle yet complex state of transition.

It's Going to Be Beautiful - Luis Gutiérrez Arias / John Henry Theisen, Mexico, 2019, 8 min.
The End of Suffering ( a proposal) - Jacqueline Lentzou, Greece, 2020, 14 min.
The Circadian Cycle - Garry Stewart, Australia, 2019, 16 min.
Os Olhos na mata e o gosto na água (The Eyes in the Woods and the Taste in the Water) - Luciana Mazeto / Vinícius Lope, Brazil, 2020, 36 min.
The Shoreline (Rivages) - Sophie Racine, France, 8 min., 2020
3.00pm
3.00pm
Once You Know (Une fois que tu sais)
Feature film
Q&A with director Emmanuel Cappellin
in partnership with Sibersalz Festival.
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The intimate journey across the abyss of a world at the edge of climate-induced collapse.
5.00pm
5.00pm
The Story of Plastic
Feature film
Conversation with director Deia Schlosberg & Mohn Family Professor of Natural Sciences and Mathematics; Professor of Biology Katayoun Chamany at Eugene Lang College.
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Shedding new light on a pressing global challenge that threatens the life expectancy of animals, humans, and Earth itself.
7:00pm
7:00pm
The Great Green Wall
Feature film
Q&A with director Jared P. Scott
❂ (NEW YORK ONLY) Watch on Labocine | RSVP
Malian musician Inna Modja takes us on an epic journey along Africa's Great Green Wall.
9:00pm
9:00pm
Jozi Gold
Feature film
Q&A with directors Fredrik Gertten & Sylvia Vollenhaven
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The golden era has left 1,6 million people living on radioactive grounds, but one person is on a mission to force the gold industry to clean up.
Sunday, October 18
Day 3
11:00am
11:00am
Exploration, Discovery, Invention + The Last Artifact
Shorts film program + Feature film / Science for Nanos (kid-friendly)
Q&A with directors
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A program full of inventions, oddities, and curiosities with an inside look at the untold story of one of the most important objects on the planet: the kilogram.

Obscura | Hannah Jordan / Emily Jordan, Australia, 8 min., 2019 - U.S. Premiere
Gravedad | Matisse Gonzalez, Germany, 10 min., 2019
Endless Forms Most Beautiful - Meredith Binnette, USA, 5 min., 2020, U.S. Premiere
The Universe Within | Valentina Cruz Collins, Chile, 6 min., 2020, U.S. Premiere
The Last Artifact - Jaime Jacobsen / Ed Watkins, USA, 57 min., 2020 - World Premiere
1:00pm
1:00pm
The Colony
Feature film & performance
Q&A with director Anna Lindemann
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A story about sisterhood and the evolution of communication in two of the most social creatures on earth: humans and ants.
3:00pm
3:00pm
ORIGINS Pitch Session
Panel with filmmakers & science media experts
Learn more about ORIGINS 2020 Participants
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This year, we will present the first ORIGINS session inspired by our prior Market day. We will hear from six science film projects in various stages of development, production, and distribution.
7:00pm
7:00pm
The World of Thinking
7pm / Feature film + Q&A with filmmakers moderated by ISF artistic director Alexis Gambis and InScience director

8pm / Following the screening, join us for a conversation with world-renown physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed, featured in the film, and Astrophysicist and Director of Sciences at Pioneer Works, Prof. Janna Levin.
In partnership with Pioneer Works and their Science Studios
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❂ Pioneer Works Conversation | RSVP
In 'The World of Thinking' five of the most brilliant scientists of our time take us on their quest for a revolutionary breakthrough. They are gathered at the world famous Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the former academic home of Einstein. What drives them, which hazards do they have to face, and how do they push themselves beyond existing boundaries?
9:00pm
9:00pm
Air Conditioner
Feature film
Q&A with director Fradique
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One day, air conditioners in the Angolan capital Luanda start to mysteriously fall from the buildings.
Monday, October 19
Day 4
11:00am
11:00am
Beneath the Surface
Shorts film program
Q&A with directors
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What is exposed is not necessarily what is meant to be perceived. The sounds that we hear, the stories that we tell and the pictures that we see have deeper meaning than what is shown on the outside. From underwater clams to Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims, these short films aim to unveil what lies beyond what we can humanly see.

Metamorphoses - Julia Popławska, Poland, 12 min., 2020 - World Premiere
Pripyat Piano - Eliška Cílková, Czech Republic, 18 min., 2020 - U.S. Premiere
Helfer - Anna Szöllősi - Hungary, 9 min., 2020 - U.S. Premiere
La Bobine 11004 - Mirabelle Fréville, France, 20 min., 2020
Fat Kathy - Julia Pelka, Poland, 14 min., 2019
Decorum - Lorenzo Monti, Australia, 10 min., 2019
Nitrate - Yousra Benziane, Canada, 14 min., 2019
1:00pm
1:00pm
Far From Home
Shorts film program
Q&A with directors
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For many, home is more than a physical place; it's people, experiences, landscapes, sounds, and smells that have been imprinted in their memory and have shaped who they are. So what does it mean to be away from home, and once we're displaced how do we connect with our origins?

Baba - Sarah Blok / Lisa Konno, Netherlands, 13 min., 2020 - U.S. Premiere
At Home But Not At Home - Suneil Sanzgiri, USA / India, 10 min., 2020 - New York Premiere
Here and There (Aqui y Alla) - Melisa Liebenthal, Argentina, 21 min., 2019
You Play Here - Inés Vogelfang , USA, 17 min., 2019 - World Premiere
The Quiet - Radheya Jegatheva, Australia, 10 min., 2019 - New York Premiere
3:00pm
3:00pm
Spanish Flu: The Forgotten Fallen
Feature film
Opening Remarks from director Justin Hardy
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The harrowing true story of the flu that decimated the world's population immediately after the carnage of World War I.
5:00pm
5:00pm
Tóxico
Feature film
Q&A with director Ariel Herrera
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In the middle of a mysterious insomnia epidemic that slowly takes on catastrophic dimensions, Laura (39) and Augusto (42) flee the city in their motor-home to get away from the chaos.
7:00pm
7:00pm
Symbiosis Lab Meeting & Science Film Social
Lab Meeting with Scientists & Filmmakers + Mid-festival Party
Art/Science Talks & Networking

supported by Science Sandbox

Open-House Lab Meeting. Freeform. Join on Zoom.

Followed by a Science Film Social party on Spatial Chat.

❂ Join on Labocine | RSVP
Scientists and filmmakers discuss their works-in progress along with scientific narratives around the theme of "Migration in Times of Crisis." We encourage everyone to join in as this is an open-door lab meeting. We will also have network/party afterwards on Spatial Chat. Be there or be square!
9:00pm
9:00pm
Coronation
Coronation" examines the political specter of Chinese state control from the first to the last day of the Wuhan lockdown. The film records the state's brutally efficient, militarized response to control the virus. Sprawling emergency field hospitals were erected in a matter of days, 40,000 medical workers were bused in from all over China, and the city's residents were sealed into their homes.

Tuesday, October 20
Day 5
11:00am
11:00am
Displacement & Relocation
Shorts film program
Q&A with directors
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Some say that the journey is more important than the destination. If so, are we taking the time to understand how our inventions, discoveries, and lifestyles impact our destination and those of others? Through the proof of theories, nuclear experiments, transformed landscapes, and exile, these five films invite you to ponder on our past and present and the impact that they have on our future.

Aggregate States of Matters - Rosa Barba, Peru / Germany, 2019, 18 min.
The Atomic Adventure - Loïc Barché, France, 2019, 25 min. - New York Premiere
Where we used to swim - Daniel Asadi Faezi, Germany, 2019, 7 min. - U.S. Premiere
The eclipse which revolutionized physics - Renata Druck, Bruno Horowicz, Brazil, 2019, 2 min.
Exilio - Maria Espinoza Stransky, Cuba, 2019, 11 min. - World Premiere
1:00pm
1:00pm
Virtual Reality
Shorts film program
Q&A with directors
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How does technology impact our everyday lives? How dependent are we on it? What role will it play in our future society? What has it helped us understand and where is the line drawn between reality and fiction? These six films navigate our dynamics with technology as well as the boundaries that are set or broken.

Story - Jolanta Bankowska, Poland, 5 min., 2019
FREYA - Camille Hollett-French, Canadá, 2020, 17 min. - U.S. Premiere
Watchmaker At Time's End - Shaheen Sheriff, India, 2020, 5 min.
Average Happiness - Maja Gehrig, Switzerland, 2019, 7 min. - East Coast Premiere
TESTFILM #1 - Telco Systems, Croatia, 2019, 14 min. - U.S. Premiere
TX - REVERSE - Martin Reinhart, Virgil Widrich, Austria, 2019, 5 min.
Janus 2155 - The last archive - Stéfane Perraud, France, 2020, 13 min.
3:00pm
3:00pm
Tune Into the Future
Feature film
Q&A with director Eric Schockmel
❂ Watch on Labocine | RSVP
One hundred years before the internet, a self-declared tech guru started preaching the future to his flock of outsiders. Meet the most influential nerd you may never have heard of: Hugo Gernsback.
5:00pm
5:00pm
Her Name Was Europa
Feature film
Q&A with directors Anja Dornieden & Juan David González Monroy
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Aurochs is the name given to the wild ancestor of modern cattle. The aurochs has the distinction of being the first documented case of extinction.
7:00pm
7:00pm
Lapsis
Feature film
Q&A with director Noah Hutton
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Struggling to support himself and his ailing younger brother, delivery man Ray takes a strange job in a strange new realm of the gig economy.
9:00pm
9:00pm
Empty Horses
Feature film
Q&A with director Péter Lichter
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The ghosts of two legendary Hungarian filmmakers (Michael Curtiz, Gábor Bódy) talk about film and personal history. A feature length essay film about cinema with actors Pál Mácsai and Roland Rába.
Wednesday, October 21
Day 6
11:00am
11:00am
Are You there?
Shorts film program
Q&A with directors
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This combination of documentary and fiction shorts revolves around the concept of presence, whether it be in the physical realm or in a more abstract form like in our minds and memories. They explore the discovery of what has always been there but has never been seen, the commute between reality and the fabrications of our imagination as well as the risk to transition to non-existence.

The Institute - Alexander Glandien, Austria / Germany, 2020, 13 min. - U.S. Premiere
Now I am an Axolotl - Alejandra Medellín, Mexico, 2019, 10 min. - U.S. Premiere
Cosmonaut - Kaspar Jancis, Estonia, 2019, 12 min. - U.S. Premiere
Of the Basin - Keely Kernan, U.S.A., 2020, 25 min. - East Coast Premiere
I Love My Wife... - Ian Tierney, UK, 2020, 5 min. - New York Premiere
Bye Little Block! - Éva Darabos, Hungary, 2020, 8 min. - U.S. Premiere
1:00pm
1:00pm
Wake Up On Mars
Feature film
Q&A with director Dea Gjinovci
❂ (NEW YORK ONLY) Watch on Labocine | RSVP
Two teenage sisters lie in a vegetative state in the small Swedish home of their Kosovar family, the cause of their mysterious malady, known as "resignation syndrome," entwined with their personal trauma experienced as refugees.
3:00pm
3:00pm
Coded Bias
Feature film
Conversation featuring film director Shalini Kantayya and computer scientist Jeannette Wing from Columbia's Data Science Institute, moderated by data journalist Susan E. McGregor

In partnership with Columbia's Zuckerman Institute and Data Science Institute

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An exploration of the fallout of MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini's startling discovery of racial bias in facial recognition algorithms.
5:00pm
5:00pm
Speak So I Can See You (Govori da bih te video)
Feature film
Q&A with director Marija Stojnić
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A cinematic exploration of the unique soundscape of one of Europe's oldest radio stations, Radio Belgrade, with a synesthetic insight into what makes us remember, think, understand, discover and feel.
7:00pm
7:00pm
Sow the wind (Semina il vento)
Feature film
Q&A with director Danilo Caputo
❂ (NEW YORK ONLY) Watch on Labocine | RSVP
Nica, 21, drops out of her university course in agronomics and returns home to Apulia in southern Italy after three years away. She finds her father deep in debt, a polluted, devastated region, and olive trees destroyed by a parasite.
9:00pm
9:00pm
The Cordillera of Dreams (La Cordillera de los sueños)
Patricio Guzmán left Chile more than 40 years ago when the military dictatorship took over the government. However, he never stopped thinking about a country, a culture and a place on the map.
Thursday, October 22
Day 7
11:00am
11:00am
Ironic Time
Shorts film program
Followed by Q&A with Fadi Baki
in partnership with Environmental Agency-Abu Dhabi & Zayed University's Al Sidr Environmental Film Festival.

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"The Environmental Agency-Abu Dhabi and Zayed University's Al Sidr Environmental Film Festival in February 2020 in Abu Dhabi, UAE focused on Waste. To my chagrin as artistic director, I did not focus on one element that is wasted. Time. On the one hand, Time is an elusive invisible mythical character that mesmerizes artists; on the other, it is the most scientifically calibrated, ubiquitous concept confronting and confounding scientists. The three films we curate frame time to challenge and bend political perspectives of our quantum selves and constructed collectives—to move beyond an ethos of outrage at the horrors of fires and floods. Immediate, spectacular, live, and broadcasted, we live perhaps in instant quick time environmentalism. However, the time of environmental violence is also slow, anachronistic, ancient, and non-human. This is invisible irony of time is what our cinema artists represent. Our paradoxical age needs migrations in time too. " Artistic Director, Al Sidr Environmental Film Festival, Nezar Andary

In Vitro - Larissa Sansour / Søren Lind, Palestine, 2019, 27 min.
The Last Days of the Man of Tomorrow - Fadi Baki, Germany/Lebanon, 2017, 29 min.
Glory At Sea! - Benh Zeitlin, USA, 2008, 25 min.
1:00pm
1:00pm
As Above So Below
Reflecting on the Moon Part I
Feature film
Q&A with director Sarah Francis
❂ Watch on Labocine | RSVP
This hushed, pared-down essay weaves together different facts and myths surrounding the moon: images, texts, and sounds are spun into a dense, delicate tissue of ideas, with humans both at the centre and infinitely small in this celestial context.
3:00pm
3:00pm
Ticket to the Moon
Reflecting on the Moon Part II
Feature Film
Q&A with director Veronika Janatkova
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At the frenzy of the Space Race almost 100,000 people on both sides of the Iron Curtain signed up to fly to the Moon at the PanAm's First Moon Flights Club. Today, 50 years later, are the "Moon" generation's dreams and aspirations the same as ours?
5:00pm
5:00pm
At the Bottom of the Sea
Feature film
Q&A with director Karsten Krause
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"At the Bottom of the Sea" traces forms of migration, interweaving them with geological and archaeological cartographies.
7:00pm
7:00pm
Whale Island
Feature film
Q&A with director Chia-chun Huang
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Oceanic literature author Liao Hung-chi and underwater photographer Ray Chin lead the audience out to the sea and into the water.
9:00pm
9:00pm
Space Dogs
Laika, a stray dog, was the first living being to be sent into space and thus to a certain death. Legend has it that she returned to Earth as a ghost and still roams the streets of Moscow alongside her free-drifting descendants.
Friday, October 23
Day 8
11:00am
11:00am
Morphogenesis
Shorts film program
Q&A with directors
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How does a cell or organism develop its shape in correlation to its environment, and what role does technology play in synchronizing the organism's process of development to achieve a state of homeostasis?

Voices of Genetic Counsellors: So Much More Than Just a Test - Anna Middleton, UK, 2020, 3 min - East Coast Premiere
Synthesis of ATP - Dr Drew Berry, Australia, 2020, 2 min. - World Premiere
Earth's Answer - Giulia Grossmann, France, 2020, 20 min. - World Premiere
Material Bodies - Dorothy Allen-Pickard, UK, 2020, 4 min. - World Premiere
The Cloud House - Elias Heuninck, Belgium, 2019, 5 min. - U.S. Premiere
A Demonstration - Sasha Litvintseva / Beny Wagner, Germany, 2020, 24 min. - U.S. Premiere
Earthbound - Normand Rajotte, Canadá, 2020, 10 min. - U.S. Premiere
Lichen - Lisa Jackson, Canadá, 2020, 11 min. - New York Premiere
1:00pm
1:00pm
Bile
Feature film
Q&A with director Ira Goryainova
❂ Watch on Labocine | RSVP

in partnership with Museum of the Moving Image's Sloan Science & Film initiative that explores the intersection of science and film - Moderated by Sonia Epstein, Executive Editor and Associate Curator of Science and Film at the Museum.
An introspective essay on the notion of the human body as political metaphor. Layer-by-layer the film digs down in order to reach answers to the proposed questions: what is body, what is illness and finally, what is death.
3:00pm
3:00pm
Homo botanicus
Feature film
Q&A with director Guillermo Quintero
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Homo Botanicus explores the romantic world of scientists through the working relationship between botanist Julio Betancur and his disciple Cristian Castro, as they traverse the Colombian tropical forests. This is an anachronistic journey through plants mysteries and their legacy in the world.
5:00pm
5:00pm
Phases of Matter
Feature film
Q&A with director Deniz Tortum
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"Phases of Matter" follows living and inanimate residents of a teaching hospital in Istanbul, moving from the operating room to the morgue, between life and other states, the real and the virtual.
7:00pm
7:00pm
Symbiosis Closing Night & Award Ceremony + Afterparty Network
SYMBIOSIS Lab Meeting| Talks, Video & Drinks
supported by Science Sandbox
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For closing night, we present the six films made as part of the 2020 Symbiosis competition presented by Science Sandbox. Our Symbiosis director for this year's festival will conclude with the Awards ceremony.

Join the AfterParty Network at around 9pm on Spatial Chat
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