Posts Tagged ‘Science on the Screen’

The Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, MA, in partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, recently announced a national initiative to expand the theater’s “Science on Screen” film series. This innovative program is designed to help educate the public at large about science in an entertaining fashion by using the power of movies. A new grant in the amount of $150,000 from the Sloan Foundation will help enable the Coolidge Corner Theatre and Sloan to bring “Science on Screen” to other communities around the country by awarding a series of grants to carefully selected independent art house theaters.

The “Science on Screen” program, which has been running for seven seasons, uses well-known motion pictures and other theatrical presentations as a launch point for in-depth, intellectual discussions with notable experts in various fields. Past programs such as Night of the Living Dead, with Steven Schlozman, MD, assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Fight Club, with biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham, and The Day the Earth Stood Still, with roboticist Dennis Hong, brought intellectualism and education to audiences about topics as varied and sometimes obscure as zombie neurobiology, the origins of male violence, and groundbreaking advances in humanoid robots.

Any non-profit art house cinemas based in the U.S. that have participated in the Art House Convergence are eligible to apply for a “Science on Screen” grant.  Applications, along with an information packet, can be downloaded here. Applications are due by April 1, 2011, with the chosen theatres to be notified by June 1, 2011.

The 6th annual Science on the Screen series at the Coolidge Corner theater in Brookline, Ma., will begin with The Man in the White Suit. Science on the Screen has been one of the theater’s most popular series and begins September6th at 7 p.m. Marc Abrahams, editor of the Annals of Improbable Research and Harvard chemist Daniel Rosenberg will also present.

The 1951 film chronicles the career of brilliant but under-appreciated chemist Sidney Stratton (Alec Guinness), who invents an everlasting fiber. When they realize Stratton’s invention will be devastating to their industry, textile manufacturers and labor unions do everything in their power to make sure his product stays off the market and unheard of.

The speakers attending the opening will address questions raised by the film, most prominently, if it is scientifically possible to create a fabric that never gets soiled or worn out.

Science on Screen began in 2005 and features movies and documentaries about science, medicine or technology. Co-produced with Boston’s Museum of Science and New Scientist Magazine, the series brings in experts in the fields related to the films.

Previous films shown in the series include Fight Club, Donnie Darko, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and American Beauty. Order tickets online at www.coolidge.org/science.