The eighth Film and Science season offers reflections on the concept of time

The eighth Film and Science season aims to explore the concept of time through twelve films that will be screened between January and March in Vitoria (Artium Museoa), San Sebastian (Tabakalera International Centre of Contemporary Culture), Bilbao (Bizkaia Aretoa-Sala Mitxelena of the UPV/EHU), Pamplona (Golem Baiona cinemas) and San Juan de Luz (Le Sélect cinemas).

Social sciences feature in the programme for the first time and Vincere (Marco Bellocchio, 2009) portrays the phenomenon of the rise of fascism.

The Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935) features in this year’s line-up; this film will be shown together with Frankenstein (1931) in a double bill.

Some twenty scientists will hold discussions with audiences at the screenings that will take place between January and March in Vitoria, San Sebastian, Bilbao, Pamplona and San Juan de Luz.

Additionally, in this programme that has been organised by the Basque Film Library, the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) and the San Sebastian Film Festival, audiences will have the chance to discuss topics such as black holes, time travel, the multiverse and the artificial creation of life with around twenty world-renowned scientists and scientists.

The press conference held today in San Sebastian was attended by Joxean Fernández, Director of the Basque Film Library; Ricardo Díez Muiño, Director of the DIPC; Edurne Ormazabal, Director General of Tabakalera; Adolfo Morais, Deputy Minister of Universities and Research of the Basque Government; and Andoni Iturbe, Deputy Minister of Culture of the Basque Government. The event was also attended by Pedro Miguel Echenique, President of the DIPC; Miguel Zugaza, Director of the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum; José Luis Rebordinos, Director of the San Sebastian Film Festival; Beatriz Herráez, Director of Artium Museoa; and Xabi Garat, Manager of Le Sélect cinemas in San Juan de Luz.

Since its first edition, this season has sought to disseminate the culture of film and science, and was described by Joxean Fernández as “a celebration of art and knowledge, where we demand quality from the films, as always, but also want them to provide a stimulating scientific perspective. And this will be achieved thanks to the extraordinary line-up of filmmakers and scientists involved in this year’s programme”.

Meanwhile, Díez Muiño recalled “the popularity of this season among the public, with over 5,600 viewers in 2024”, and stressed that, “the convergence of cinema and science has allowed us to show that science forms an integral part of culture and is an inherently human activity, while also providing an alternative, original view of cinematic creations, making them more meaningful”.

FILMS
The season will begin tomorrow, Thursday 9 January at Artium Museoa with The Theory of Everything (James Marsh, 2014), a journey through part of the life of the physicist, astrophysicist, cosmologist and populariser Stephen W. Hawking, an expert on black holes, which will be presented by Pedro Miguel Echenique, winner of the Prince of Asturias Award and President of the DIPC, in San Sebastian (10) and Bilbao (11). It will be presented in Vitoria (9) and Pamplona (14) by Ikerbasque researcher at the DIPC and Director of Strategic Programmes Arantzazu García Lekue.

This year, the classics include: The Time Machine (George Pal, 1960), based on the novel by H.G. Wells, which introduced the concept of time travel; a double bill of Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931, 1935) which depicts a scientist’s quest to bring inanimate bodies to life; and the modern horror classic The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982), about a battle between scientists and an extraterrestrial being in Antarctica.

More recent titles will also be screened, such as High Life (Claire Denis, 2018), which competed at the San Sebastian Film Festival and explores subjects such as black holes, reproductive experiments and life in space; the seven-time Oscar winner Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, 2022), an invitation to explore the multiverse; and Marguerite’s Theorem (Anna Navion, 2023), the portrait of a mathematician in the final year of her doctoral thesis (screened as part of Emakumeak Zientzian).

The Basque Film Library also offers audiences the chance to discover lesser-known works such as Operation Swallow: the Battle for Heavy Water (Jean Dréville, Titus Vibe-Müller, 1948), a blend of non-fiction and adventure that takes us back to the race to build the atomic bomb in the Second World War; The Deep (Baltasar Kormákur, 2012), a film that explores the limits of the human body; and Vincere (Marco Bellocchio, 2009). Thanks to this latter film, which recounts the rise to power of Benito Mussolini by telling the story of Ida Dalser, his first wife, social sciences are being featured in this season for the first time, with historians Julián Casanova and Antonio Rivera examining the rise of fascism in the period between the two world wars.

Finally, Film and Science will be screening Erin Brockovich (Steven Soderbergh, 2000), in which Julia Roberts plays an environmental activist, and Sachs’ Disease (Michel Deville, 1999), winner of the Silver Shell for Best Director and Best Screenplay, which describes the life of a village doctor whose greatest virtue is his ability to listen (screened in conjunction with BioGipuzkoa).

The entire programme of films will be screened in San Sebastian, Bilbao, Vitoria and Pamplona, while it will also be possible to watch Vincere, The Theory of Everything, Marguerite’s Theorem, Gravity and Operation Swallow: the Battle for Heavy Water in San Juan de Luz.

The films will be presented by: Pedro Miguel Echenique (Professor Emeritus of Condensed Matter Physics at the UPV/EHU and President of the DIPC and Physical Materials Centre (CFM)); Arantzazu García Lekue (physicist, Ikerbasque Professor and the DIPC’s Director of Strategic Programmes); Maria Navarro Gastiasoro (physicist, DIPC researcher on exotic superconductivity and correlation in quantum materials); Antonio Rivera (Professor of Contemporary History in the Faculty of Arts of the UPV/EHU); Julián Casanova (Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Zaragoza and Visiting Professor at the Central European University of Vienna); Juan Ignacio Pérez Iglesias (holder of a PhD in Biology and Professor of Physiology at the UPV/EHU; currently the Basque Government’s Minister for Universities, Science and Innovation); Antonio Casado da Rocha (permanent researcher in the Department of Philosophy of Values and Social Anthropology at the UPV/EHU); Iraia Muñoa (biotechnologist, researcher at the UPV/EHU Fertility Group); Anna Rubio (holder of a PhD in Physical Oceanography, principal investigator and coordinator of the Operational Oceanography group at AZTI); Ainhize Barrainkua (holder of a degree in Physics and Electronic Engineering from the UPV/EHU); Daniela Moreno (PhD student at the Basque Center for Applied Mathematics (BCAM) and at the UPV/EHU in the CFD-MS group); Fernando Cossío (Professor in the Department of Organic Chemistry at the (UPV/EHU) and Scientific Director of Ikerbasque); Ana Galarraga (holder of a degree in Veterinary Science and Food Science and Technology, editor of the journal Elhuyar); Rafael Rotaeche (Head of the Primary Care and OSI Research Unit in Gipuzkoa); Miren Cajaraville (Professor of Cell Biology, expert in Environmental Toxicology); Xabier Lopez (chemist, Professor at the UPV/EHU and associate of the DIPC); Mikel Pagadi (screenwriter and TV presenter); Daniel Sánchez Portal (physicist at the CSIC-UPV/EHU Physical Materials Centre and associate of the DIPC) Silvina Cerveny (researcher at the Physical Materials Centre (CFM, CSIC-UPV/EHU) and associate of the DIPC); Idoia García de Gurtubay (holder of a PhD in Condensed Matter Physics from the UPV/EHU and DIPC associate); Javier Aizpurua (physicist, Scientific Director of Basque Quantum and Professor of Ikerbasque in the DIPC); and Didier Roux (physicist, chemist and member of the Château Observatoire Abbadia).

OTHER ACTIVITIES
Also, the historian Julián Casanova, who will be presenting Vincere (Marco Bellocchio, 2009) in San Sebastian and Bilbao, will be giving a free lecture in the capital of Gipuzkoa entitled La semilla del fascismo (The seed of fascism). It will take place on Friday 24 January, at 6 pm, in Tabakalera’s Z hall, just before the film is screened (each of the events can be attended on their own).

On 11 March, the Kutxa Kultur Kluba hall in Tabakalera will host the screening of The Mystery of the Giant Crystals (El misterio de los cristales gigantes – Javier Trueba, 2010), a documentary on the formation of giant gypsum crystals in the depths of the Earth, which will be presented by the director of the documentary and its star, the crystallography expert Juanma García Ruiz, Ikerbasque professor at the DIPC and honorary research professor at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).

Finally, the morning sessions for schools will be held in San Sebastian, Bilbao and Vitoria, where Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón, 2013) will be screened, subtitled in Basque and Spanish and presented by researchers from the Cosmos department of the DIPC (Leire Larizgoitia, Francesc Monrabal, Lurdes Ondaro and Sara Ortega).

Tickets can be purchased on the websites and at the ticket offices of Tabakalera, Artium Museoa, the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum (the sessions have been moved to Bizkaia Aretoa due to the construction work in the art gallery) and the Le Sélect and Golem-Baiona cinemas. The price of each ticket is between 3.50 and 6 euros (not including discounts).