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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, adding locations across India in 2008. 2008 also saw a second tour from International multimedia artist Peter McLeish. Visit our Archive of Past Programmes |
About SCINEMA | Latest news | Kristian Lang's visit to The Dish in Parkes | Management | Volunteer SCINEMA will screen across Australia from August 14 to 22, 2010, to celebrate National Science Week. With 2010 being the International Year of Biodiversity, expect a program exploring the way we interact with the environment and the critters we share it with. Become a SCINEMA partner venue - SCINEMA is offered free to schools, libraries, art galleries and museums. Grab a copy of our venue application form. SCINEMA received over 400 entries from 35 countries in 2010, and we would like to thank all of our entrants, and congratulate our 2010 finalists: National Student Short Film Competition finalists A short film (under 10 mins) celebrating the International Year of Biodiversity Primary Schools Documentaries Australia (Michael Thomas, WA); 8 Year 3 Boys, 2 Local Waterways (Year 3 Patterson Lakes Primary School, Vic); Journey Through Time (Michael Weightman, WA); Animal Diversity in Bondi (Kayna Fichadia, NSW) Secondary Schools Biodiversity (Rory Young, Vic); To Bee or Not To Bee (Kristian Lang, Vic); Fundamental Shift (Blake Borcich, Vic); Making the Right Moves (Yuxi Ruan, NSW); Woodleigh Wildlife Reserve (Callum Simpson, Vic); Somers Marine Life (Sam Borley, Vic) Tertiary Institutions Weatherwatch (D. Pretty & D. Medek, ACT); Mars Bar Challenge (Claire Farrugia, ACT); Last Waltz of the Honeybee (D. Burchell & C. Faruggia, ACT); Zoonotica (Sally Lowenstein, ACT) International Open Film Festival finalists Short Film finalists Planet You (USA); Finding the Forest for the Trees (USA); High Stakes (Australia); Elemental - Sodium (UK); Nano You (UK); Naming Pluto (UK); Breaking the Chain (USA)Television Series finalists Catalyst (Australia); Whatever! The Science of Teens (Australia); One Minute Astronomy (Italy); Bringing Life to Space (Denmark); Voyage to the Planets (Australia)Animation/Experimental finalists An Eyeful of Sound (UK); All Systems Go Neil Armstrong (USA); Mutation - Selection: the bacteria resist (France); Breu (Portugal)Winners of our 2010 Festival will be announced on Friday 23 July 2010. Watch this space or subscribe to our mailing list to be the first to know. We would like to welcome our new partner in SCINEMA, The Royal Institution of Australia. RiAus brings science to people and people to science, which makes them a perfect fit for SCINEMA Festival of Science Film. 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. 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, 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 ten 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. The SCINEMA organising committee reserves its TradeMark TM of the name SCINEMA and the SCINEMA film strip atom logo. 19 July - SCINEMA finalists announced. See here for full list of finalists. Winner's names will be published on Friday 23 July 2010, when our 2010 Travelling Festival program will also be published. 20 March 2009 - Kristian Lang, winner of our 2008 Festival, was the subject of an ABC TV Catalyst episode. Check out Kristian trooping the SCINEMA colours and wearing our 2008 T-Shirt. Congratulations Kristian. Watch the Catalyst episode. Kristian Lang - our winning 2009 filmmaker - reports on his prize (an internship at The Dish)
"In 2009 I won the Best Student Film category in the Scinema CSIRO science film competition. As the prize, Scinema, along with CSIRO organized for me to go and visit Australia’s leading observatories: the Siding Spring optical telescope, the Parkes “Dish” and the Tidbinbilla Deep Space tracking centre. This was a really great thing for me to do, as I love space and astronomy. I set out from Melbourne with my parents for Siding Spring Observatory. I was taken around the facility by manager Mr. Bob Dean. We saw all of the experimental machines, built and designed by CSIRO – clever people! The actual telescope was huge and I got the chance to return that night and see astronomers working and making observations about the magnetic fields of distant stars. I also was taken around the outside of the telescope (six stories up) and got a fantastic view of the Milky Way – it was a bit scary. Mr. Dean told me that the original computer that ran the telescope was 32 kilobytes and was 35 years old and was the most reliable computer in the world. It had never crashed. Next, we set off for Parkes. We met up with the director of Scinema, Cris Kennedy and the director of the visitors centre, at the Dish, Chris Hollingdrake. Mr Hollingdrake showed us the control room of the Dish and we got to talk to some of it’s operators. We went back outside and found that the Dish was tilted right down to the ground and we were asked to climb aboard! The dish started to tilt up into the air! When the dish reached vertical, or ‘stow’ position, we got to have a walk around on top of all 64 metres across the Dish. Parts of the Dish were only made of aluminium and steel mesh. I could see the ground far far below and could feel the mesh flex below my feet – it was pretty scary. We climbed back down into the dish and got shown around the internal workings of the telescope. The Parkes Dish was instrumental in helping with both the Apollo 11 and Apollo 13 moon missions and relayed information to NASA, from the astronauts. We finished up at Parkes and headed south again for Canberra. Candy Bailey is the manager of the Visitors Centre at Tidbinbilla Deep Space Tracking Centre and she gave us a great tour. We went into the control centre and had a look around, we also saw the Honeysuckle Creek radio telescope that received and sent the first pictures of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon. That was pretty cool! Tidbinbilla is NASA’s base in Australia and is used to monitor deep space satellites and probes – unlike Parkes, it can receive AND send information. It’s main telescope is a little larger than the Dish and measures 70 metres across. As a side trip, my parents and I decided to take the trek out to the original Honeysuckle Creek site to see where the original telescope was based, it was pretty cool to feel the history of the place and know what happened there just over 40 years ago. It was an amazing trip and I’d like to thank all of the people at Scinema, CSIRO and at the telescopes. It was a really great experience and I want to win Scinema again this year so I can experience another amazing adventure." Kristian Lang - April 12, 2010. Enter SCINEMA 2010 student short film competition here. SCINEMATM is a partnership between Australia's CSIRO, Ri Aus, and Cosmos Magazine. SCINEMA Director - Cris
Kennedy Ph 02 6276 6225 SCINEMA Advisory Board 2010 - Cris Kennedy (CSIRO), Damian Harris (CSIRO Education), Amanda Tyndal (RiAus), Christine Cansfield-Smith (CSIRO Discovery), Wilson da Silva (Cosmos Magazine) and Kylie Ahern (Cosmos Magazine). SCINEMATM 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 sponsors CSIRO and RiAus, and to major promotional partner COSMOS Magazine. 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 19 July 2010 |
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