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History of SCINEMA Conceived as a way to forge new links between the sciences and the arts, SCINEMA has explored ways to enhance communication to raise public and stakeholder excitement and trust in science through the medium of film, while also celebrating the scientific advances in film technology itself. Inaugurated in 2000, SCINEMA opened as an internationally competitive festival playing in Canberra only, at the Center Cinema, to a paying audience. It was well attended, with sell-outs and repeat performances of its key event ‘Sexy Skivvy Science’ featuring Dean and Rob from the 1970s & 80s children’s television series The Curiosity Show talking about clips from the series and performing some of their more fun experiments (and, of course, wearing their trademark skivvies). Visit our Archive of Past Programmes In 2002 and 2003, a scaled-down version of SCINEMA ran over a week at the National Museum of Australia, playing a curated program of Australian and international science documentary film to full houses. In 2004, with a grant from the Commonwealth Government to grow the scope of the festival, SCINEMA played in 45 venues around Australia, before an audience of 4,500. Wanting to involve a school-aged audience in the excitement of film-making and science communication, we began the SCINEMA Student Short Science Film Competition with our 2004 festival, uncovering some truly inspired works from Primary, Secondary and tertiary institutions around Australia. As word of SCINEMA spread, we found more venues wanting to take part, and our 2005 Festival played to audience figures of almost 10,000 at nearly 80 venues, with major new partners including the Museums of South Australia, Queensland and Melbourne, and new regional centres including Port Lincoln and Wagga Wagga. In 2006, we returned to our internationally competition, screening over two weeks at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, as well as playing our Travelling Film Festival in 100+ venues across Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Visit our Archive of Past Programmes |
2008 Winners Announced | About SCINEMA | Management | Volunteer SCINEMA Festival of Science Film
2008 Winners Announced The outstanding quality of Australia’s science and factual filmmakers was on display in Brisbane as the SCINEMA Festival of Science Film announced the winners of its 2008 Festival last night. “We were thrilled by the high calibre of films we had to choose from this year” Festival Jury Chairman Wilson da Silva said as he announced the winners at a rooftop party at Queensland Museum South Bank to celebrate the close of a successful National Science Week Scottish film The Colour of Sound took out Best Film “for the engaging way it conveyed a whole tapestry of science,” da Silva said to the crowd. Local filmmaker Vickie Guest was on-hand to accept her award for organ-donation doco Over My Dead Body, and told Festival guests she was thrilled to have her film recognised. Australia’s ABC TV took out three categories in the internationally competitive film festival, which received over 150 entries from 31 countries. ABC producer Richard Smith was announced as Best Director for his study of the journey of oil from its birth in the prehistoric past to its role in our greenhouse future, Crude, while Rory McGuinness took Best Cinematography for The Big Blue and producer/director Klaus Toft took the gong for Best Science Television for Thunderheads. Interestingly, The Big Blue and Thunderheads were among the final films produced by ABC TV’s Natural History Unit, which was closed by the national broadcaster earlier this year. A young Victorian filmmaker, Kristian Lang, took Best Student Film for his 3rd grade class project Photosynthesis: How it works. Aside from Kristian’s age and aside from the film’s technical assurance, SCINEMA Festival Director Cris Kennedy announced to the party while presenting Kristian with his trophy, “the film got to the essence of successful science communication, which is to condense complex issues into a vehicle that explains science simply, and in a fun way.” Kristian’s proud parents were on hand to watch the ten-year-old Ascot Vale Primary School student receive his first international film festival prize. Other Festival winners included Spain’s Pablo Garcia-Lopez take Best Animation or Experimental for his short film Expedition to the Brain, while the US production The Brain Fitness Program took the Award for Technical Merit. The awards night brought the 2008 SCINEMA Festival of Science Film to a close. In its eighth year, the festival screened in 150 cities across Australia, and a few in India, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. A partnership between CSIRO and Cosmos Magazine, the Festival runs under the support of the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science and Research through its National Science Week program. Festival winners were: Best Film – The Colour of Sound
(Scotland) Best Director – Richard Smith
for Crude (Australia) produced for ABC TV Best Cinematography – Rory
McGuinness for The Big Blue Best Experimental/Animation –
Expedition to the Brain (Spain) Best Student Film –
Photosynthesis: How it works (Victoria, Asutralia)Producer and
Director: Kristian Lang for Ascot Vale Primary SchoolA simple look at
how photosynthesis works, made for the filmmaker's 3rd grade class. Best Science Television –
Thunderheads (Australia) Award for Scientific Merit –
Brain Fitness Program (USA) Prix du Jury – Over My
Dead Body (Australia)
Clockwise from top left: Kristian Lang receives his award from Festival Director Cris Kennedy, Jury Chair & Cosmos Magazine Editor-In-Chief with Kristian Lang, some of the crowd at the rooftop party, Jury Member Dr Anna Littleboy talks about the difficulty of selecting winning films from the strong line-up, Queensland filmmaker Vickie Guest receives her trophy, SCINEMA (2005) winning film-maker Jasper Montana with Kristian Lang and his parents Ian and Vickie. About SCINEMA 2008 - The best and brightest science films can be seen in every corner of Australia this coming National Science Week as SCINEMA, Australia’s premier festival of science film, tours to over 150 towns and cities from August 16 to 24. SCINEMA, a science film, video and multimedia festival, brings a program of science drama, documentaries, and short subjects, as well as a number of guest speakers, to venues from Cairns to Hobart, and Sydney to Perth. Since its launch in 2000, SCINEMA has played to tens of thousands of people across Australia, and in 2008, our team has curated a program of amazing films on topics ranging from climate change, human health and natural history, to broader social films. SCINEMA gives many filmmakers an opportunity to have their films, sometimes obscure but always terrific, be seen by an audience. SCINEMA will also play select venues in New Zealand and the United Kingdom, and for the first time, India and the United States. SCINEMA (pronounced with a long ‘i’ to emphasise the science behind the cinema) is a partnership of the CSIRO, Cosmos Magazine and the National Museum of Australia, with funding from DEST’s National Science Week program, and ACT Department of Health. (Media release issued 10 March 2008). Promoting and raising the public level of science literacy is the major driver behind the team who run SCINEMA. We have, for eight years, provided a vehicle for new local talent to have their work screened to a national audience and gain experience and recognition, and we continue this year, screening a program of student films at Canberra's Discovery Centre. In addition to the film screenings, our line-up will include our international guest, Canadian multimedia artist Peter McLeish, who will present his new work ‘Polaris Terrarum’, a collaboration with the crew of the last Space Shuttle. A jury (chaired by Wilson da Silva, science journalist and editor of Cosmos science magazine) will preside over the screenings and select winning entries in the competition categories:
Winners will be announced on August 24, the closing night of National Science Week. Winners will be announced on the SCINEMA website, and in The Australian newspaper on Saturday 30 August.
The SCINEMA organising committee reserves its TradeMark of the name SCINEMA and the SCINEMA film strip atom logo. SCINEMA is a partnership between Australia's CSIRO and Cosmos Magazine. SCINEMA Director - Cris Kennedy Ph 02 6276 5850 SCINEMA Advisory Board 2008 - Cris Kennedy (CSIRO), Damian Harris (CSIRO Education), Christine Cansfield-Smith (CSIRO Discovery), Wilson da Silva (Cosmos Magazine) and Kylie Ahern (Cosmos Magazine). SCINEMA has to date run on sourced grants and sponsorships, through the hard work of a mostly voluntary staff, so that we can provide our event free-of-charge to our 100+ venues, and that they in turn may make visiting SCINEMA a free and exciting experience. Many thanks to the Australian Government's National Science Week crew around Australia and the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research. Thanks to our major sponsor CSIRO, and to major promotional partner COSMOS Magazine. Thanks also to ACT Health, who provided grant money to run a series of workshops for young filmmakers. How can I become a part of SCINEMA? SCINEMA would love to hear from people wishing to volunteer their time to promote our festival. We need people in each of our venue cities to hand out flyers and assist with media enquiries. Contact us for more information.
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Links This page last updated on 28 July 2008 |
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