Program Archive - 2010 festival

In 2010, SCINEMA screened at 300+ venues around Australia
See our film program | Meet our national tour guest

• 8 Year 3 Boys

• All Systems Go, Neil Armstrong

• Animal diversity in Bondi

• an eyeful of sound

• Biodiversity

• Breu

• Bringing Life to Space

• Catalyst: in the Line of Fire

• Climate Puzzle

• Dark to Light: Saving Burma’s Eyes

• Do You Know What Time it is?

• Documentaries Australia

• Driven to Diffraction

• Elemental - Sodium

• End of the Rainbow

• Eyes on the Skies

• Finding the Forest for the Trees

• Fundamental Shift

• High Stakes

• Honeybee Blues

• How Kevin Bacon Cured Cancer

• Journey through time

• Last Waltz of the Honeybee

• Lost Village

• Making the right moves

• More Than Horseplay

• Naming Pluto

• Nano You

• Planet You

• Seed Warriors

• The Hobbit Enigma

• The Land of Time and Space

• The Mars Bar Challenge

• To Bee or Not to Bee

• Weatherwatch

• Whatever! The Science of Teen

• Woodleigh Wildlife Reserve

• Zoonotica
   

Congratulations to our winners and to all filmmakers who entered SCINEMA 2010.

Many thanks to our judges - Amanda Tyndal, Adam Strang, Cris Kennedy, Damian Harris, Brooke Reeves

And many thanks to our partners - Wilson da Silva and Kylie Ahern of Cosmos Magazine, and the team at RiAus in Adelaide.

Our 2010 films

SCINEMA Travelling Film Festival 2010

SCINEMA has eight programs of films travelling to our many venues in 2010, grouped thematically: Space SCINEMA | More Space SCINEMA | Healthy SCINEMA | Civilised SCINEMA | Environmental Warriors | Environmental Challenges | Elemental SCINEMA | Young SCINEMA

Space SCINEMA: Eyes on the Sky + Naming Pluto + Do You Know What Time It Is?

Eyes on the Sky Germany. D. Lars Lindberg Christensen. 60mins. Celebrating the 400th anniversary of the telescope, the most revolutionary development in the history of astronomy. Explores the history, scientific importance, technological breakthroughs and people behind the creation of the telescope.

Bringing Life to Space Denmark. D. Jakob Gottschau. 28mins. For several decades man have prepared for long voyages into space and to settle other planets. To secure survival on a long journey we need to “Bring Life to Space”, and scientists have been trying to copy Earth’s delicate ecological balances in small, sealed cycles, to prepare the production of sufficient and vital supplies of water, oxygen and food on a journey into space. This historical documentary takes us back to the 1960s and reveals unique footage from Russian experiments, where people were confined for one year in a sealed spaceship mock up. Visit the website.

Young SCINEMA: 8 Year 3 Boys, 2 Local Waterways + Journey Through Time + Animal Biodiversity in Bondi + Biodiversity + To Bee or Not to Bee + Fundamental Shift + Weatherwatch + Mars Bar Challenge + Last Waltz of the Honeybee + Zoonotica

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Peter McLeish - Science Art Collaborations

Peter McLeish will show his films about mysterious newly discovered luminous emissions, high in the earth’s atmosphere and his film on the Polar regions.

Peter McLeish is a Canadian born international painter/multi-media artist/filmmaker. Since the late 1990's, Peter has been developing artworks, films and research on science based themes which have been exhibited and screened in many counties including Australia, Hungary, Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Argentina, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and Italy. During the past two years, his recent work & films had been presented in major screenings and/or exhibits in many museums/centres such as the the Australian Museum in Sydney- Australia, Queensland Museum South Bank-Brisbane-Australia, the South Australian Museum in Adelaide-Australia, the Otago Museum in Dunedin-New Zealand, the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh-United States, the TELUS World of Science-Calgary in Calgary-Canada, Canada South Science City in Windsor-Canada, Geological Museum-Natural History Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen-Denmark, Planetarium Hamburg in Hamburg-Germany, Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center in Copenhagen-Denmark, Art Centre Silkeborg Bad in Silkeborg-Denmark. Peter had received over twenty various types of grants, awards and/or support from different branches of the Canadian and Quebec Governments between-1991 to 2010.

Since 2001, Peter has been involved in a collaboration based on Red Sprites with American scientist Walter A. Lyons (2005 President of the American Meteorological Society, President 2007-08 United States National Council of Industrial Meteorologists and current President of FMA Research Inc.). Red sprites are upper atmospheric optical phenomenon (Transient Luminous Events) associated with thunderstorms that have recently been only documented using low level television. This collaboration eventually led to Walter A. Lyons receiving a Unites States National Science Foundation grant regarding the collaboration and subsequent creation of Lyons’s DVD titled The Hundred Year Hunt for the Red Sprite and interactive website. Peter created the artwork in the The Hundred Year Hunt for the Red Sprite as well as his companion-six minute film titled Lightning’s Angels. Since 2002, both films have been presented at many major International science symposiums, conferences, media festivals, science film festivals, science & art museums/centres and planetariums all over the world.

Peter’s continued research subsequently led him to an additional collaboration with Dr. Colin Price from the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Science, Tel Aviv University who was working on sprite research within the MEIDEX -Mediterranean Israeli Dust Experiment mission from a ground station with the ill-fated crew of the NASA Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003. During the course of the MEIDEX mission, was the first discovery of TIGER (Transient Ionospheric Glow Emission in Red) taken by the Columbia space shuttle crew in 2003. The camera on Columbia was operated by Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut. The main goal of the experiment was to study dust storms and how they affect the radiative properties of the atmosphere. Ilan Ramon, observed strange lightning like flashes over the ocean near Madagascar and he photographed these lights. These images were transmitted to the ground and later analyzed. When the MEIDEX scientific team analyzed the data, they realized one very strange point right at the beginning.... there was no thunderstorm activity anywhere nearby! Lightning without a storm! No one knows what caused TIGER. Was TIGER a new type of phenomenon? It does not appear to be related to Red Sprites.

Transient Luminous Events-TLE is a short-lived electrical phenomenon that occurs above storm clouds. In addition to Red Sprites there are three recent types of TLE's which are Trolls, Gnomes and Pixies.

Trolls (for Transient Red Optical Luminous Lineament) occur after an especially strong sprite, down in the lowest tendrils near the cloud tops. Early recordings showed them as red spots with faint red tails, rising much like blue jets. Faster cameras show trolls to be a rapid series of events. Each event starts with a red glow that forms in a sprite tendril, then "drains" downward. Each following event starts higher, so that the series looks like an upward blur in slower videos. This is a typical pattern in science: looking at the same old thing with better instruments always reveals something new and unexpected.

Gnomes are small, very brief white spikes of light that point upward from the top of a large thundercloud's anvil top, specifically the "overshoot dome" caused as strong updrafts push rising moist air slightly above the anvil. They appear about 150 meters wide and about a kilometre high, and they last a few microseconds.

Pixies are so small that they appear as points, making them less than 100 m across. In the video that first documented them they appear scattered across the overshoot dome, flashing seemingly at random. Pixies and gnomes appear to be a pure white colour, like ordinary lightning, and they do not accompany lightning strokes.

Peter is currently at the start of a collaboration and cooperation with Dr.Takahashi from the Department of Geophysics at Tohoku University-who has been observing TLEs from space with ISUAL (Imager of Sprites and Upper Atmospheric Lightnings) on board FORMOSAT-2 satellite since 2004.Peter also intends to begin collaboration and cooperation with the National Space Institute in Denmark.

During Peter's current visit he will exchange information about TLE's with the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing-Swinburne University of Technology in Hawthorn, Victoria.

Peter believes it is important to promote unity, between art and science in order to create a better understanding of the natural world and the cosmos.

Peter will have film presentations at the the following venues in Australia:

• August 26th-School of Physics-University of Western Australia, Perth
• August 26th-Scitech, Perth
• August 24th-Creative Industries Faculty-Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane
• August 23rd-School of English, Media Studies & Art History-University of Queensland, Brisbane
• August 22nd-Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium, Brisbane
• August 20th-Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing-Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn
• August 17th-RiAus/The Royal Institution of Australia, Adelaide
• August 13th-School of Mathematical & Physical Sciences-University of Newcastle, Newcastle
• August 12th-School of Physics-University of Sydney, Sydney
• August 11th-Sydney College of Arts-University of Sydney, Sydney
• August 5th-16th-a residency by the Sydney College of Arts-University of Sydney, Sydney
• August 12th-Radio interview with Carol Duncan of ABC Radio Newcastle
• August 17th-Radio interview with Carole Whitelock on ABC 891 afternoon show. Adelaide
• August 17th- Newspaper article –The Advertiser: Sprites, trolls, gnomes and pixies - fairytale figures of the night sky intrigue science written by Clare Peddie. Adelaide
• Peter's tour of Australia was partially sponsored by SCINEMA'10.
  
  Peter will also have a film presentation/lecture tour of New Zealand
• September 10th-Department of Physics and Astronomy-University of Canterbury, Christchurch - cancelled due to earthquake
• September 8th-Carter Observatory, Wellington
• September 7th-School of Chemical and Physical Sciences- Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington
• September 6th-Institute of Fundamental Sciences-Massey University in Palmerston North
• September 4th-Hawke's Bay Holt Planetarium, Hawke’s Bay
• September 1st -Faculty of Science University of Auckland, Auckland
• August 30th-Stardome hosted by the Auckland Astronomical Society, Inc., Auckland
• August 29th-Radio Interview with Graeme Hill on RadioLIVE, Auckland
  
  Peter McLeish's tour of New Zealand is undertaken with the support of the Canadian High Commission in Wellington.

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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
Documentary (over 25mins) I, Psychopath (Australia); Dark to Light: saving Burma’s eyes (Australia); More Than Horseplay (Australia); Lost Village (Czech Republic); The Hobbit Enigma (Australia); Feral Peril (Australia); End of the Rainbow (Australia); Seed Warriors (Switzerland); Climate Puzzle (Germany); Honeybee Blues (Australia); Driven to Diffraction (Australia); How Kevin Bacon Cured Cancer (Australia); Do You Know What Time It Is? (UK); Eyes on the Skies (Netherlands); Land of Space and Time (USA); Bachelard Residence, Darwinian Reverie (France); Catching Cancer (Australia); Feeding our Future (Netherlands); Following Darwin’s Steps (Spain); Professor Oehmichen’s Magnificent Flying Machine (France); The Future at What Price (France); When Egyptians Sailed On The Red Sea (France); The Long Goodbye (Australia); The Outer Adventure (France); The Private Life of Leonardo Da Vinci (Italy); The State of the Planet’s Oceans (USA); There’s Something About Species (France); Tracking their Silent Voices (Germany); The Story of Cesar Milstein (Argentina)

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)

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