New York-based film festival Imagine Science Films, in partnership with NYU Abu Dhabi, will present the singular science film festival in Abu Dhabi from February 19-21, in collaboration with the NYUAD Institute and the NYUAD Arts Center.
This interdisciplinary festival will celebrate the art of science through three feature film screenings, 35 short films, a science art gallery exhibition and educational workshops scheduled over three days. The film festival will take place at NYU Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island campus and is open to the public.
Founded by geneticist and filmmaker Alexis Gambis, Imagine Science Films bridges the gap between art and science making science more engaging and accessible to the public. Imagine Science Films began as a small film club at Rockefeller University in New York in 2008, and has since hosted the annual Imagine Science Film Festival in New York City with support from Google, Nature and AAAS as well as science film festivals around the world. ISF is the first science film festival founded, and still run by scientists.
Speaking on the announcement, Alexis Gambis said, “By bringing new forms of scientific expression to Abu Dhabi, we aim to foster a dialogue between the sciences and the arts in parallel with the expanding cultural scene in the UAE.”
The Imagine Science Film Festival in Abu Dhabi focuses on themes inspired by science occurring in the region, including water, coral research, pearl culture technology and space exploration. Films will explore the way people reshape water and how it shapes us, the return of the pearl trade to Abu Dhabi via pearl culture technology, the fault lines that still jeopardise the coast, the corals which thrive in the Gulf, and the future of space travel from Abu Dhabi.
Other programmes move from the physical landscape of the region to the internal, where the shores of the mind may be eroded by time and illness, to the cusp of music, biology, and technology, and into the future of the Middle East and beyond. The film festival includes a variety of film types including documentary, non-fiction, docufiction, experimental films, animation, and even raw science data.