The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Coolidge Corner Theatre announce Science on Screen, coming to grantee theaters across the nation. Participating organizations will use one of the nation’s favorite pastimes—going to the movies—to promote public understanding of science.

Salina Art Center Cinema is in its third year as a Science on Screen grantee. The Cinema will run four Science on Screen events between Monday and April 15. These free Monday night events creatively pair screenings of films with presentations by notable experts from the world of science and technology.

Each film serves as a jumping-off point for the speaker to introduce current research or technological advances in a way that engages general audiences. The grant is funded by the Sloan Foundation’s Program for Public Understanding of Science, Technology & Economics and administered by the Coolidge Corner Theatre, the celebrated Massachusetts art-house cinema that launched the Science on Screen format in 2005.

Science on Screen events at Salina Art Center Cinema in 2019 include the following.

• Monday at 5:30 p.m. Salina Art Center Cinema kicks off National Science on Screen ® week with a special presentation of SEARCHING (2018) followed at 7:20pm by guest speaker Sergeant Jeffery D. Swanson from the Kansas Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Sergeant Swanson will lead a discussion exploring the ways in which computer forensics are being used to investigate crime and what we can all do to stay safer.
• April 1, 2019 at 5:30 p.m., Beyond the Brink (2018), a documentary, dives deep into the intricacies of the water and food nexus as it highlights the evolving implications on a National Security threat through the lens of California’s San Joaquin Valley. Following the film, James J. Butler, Jr. Senior Scientist, Section Chief, Geohydrology with the Kansas Geological Survey will discuss Kansas’ invisible water crisis and the depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer, one of the largest underground sources of freshwater in the world.
• April 8, 2019 at 5:30 p.m. watch Robot & Frank (2012), a film set in the near future. An ex-jewel thief receives a gift from his son: a robot butler programmed to look after him. But soon the two companions try their luck as a heist team. But can humans and machines truly be friends? After the film, join K-State Polytechnic Computer Systems Professors Bill Genereux, Tom Mertz, Troy Harding, Tim Bower and Michael Oetken in a discussion about the impact of robotics, automation and artificial intelligence on society.
• April 15, 2019, at 5:30 p.m. – In our final installment see To Dust (2018). Shmuel, a Hasidic cantor in Upstate New York, distraught by the untimely death of his wife, struggles to find religious solace, while secretly obsessing over how her body will decay. As a clandestine partnership develops with Albert, a local community college biology professor, the two embark on a darkly comic and increasingly literal undertaking into the underworld. Then enjoy a discussion with Dr. Philip S. Meckley, Department of Religion and Philosophy at Kansas Wesleyan University as we discuss religious and philosophical ideas about what happens to the human body after death. He will be looking at various topics like death consciousness, the religious and social status of the human corpse, and the loss of capacity for human experience.

Since launching the national Science on Screen grant in 2011, the Sloan Foundation and the Coolidge have awarded a total of 201 Science on Screen grants to 82 independent theaters nationwide, including 36 this year.

According to the Motion Picture Association of America’s most recent Theatrical and Home Entertainment Market Environment Report, more than three-quarters of the population of the U.S. and Canada over the age of 2—some 263 million people—attended a movie in 2017, purchasing an average of 4.7 tickets over the course of the year. Science on Screen aims to spark a love of science, technology, and engineering in America’s movie-goers by giving them a taste of scientific discovery along with their popcorn.

For more information about the Science on Screen grant initiative, visit the Science on Screen website at scienceonscreen.org and the 2018−19 grant award announcement at https://scienceonscreen.org/blog/congratulations-to-the-sos-class-of-2018-19.

           

About the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

The New York-based Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, founded in 1934, is a nonprofit philanthropy that makes grants for original research and education in science, technology, and economic performance. Sloan’s program in Public Understanding of Science, Technology & Economics, directed by Doron Weber, supports books, radio, film, television, theater and new media to reach a wide, non-specialized audience and to bridge the two cultures of science and the humanities.   

Sloan’s Film Program encourages filmmakers to create more realistic and compelling stories about science and technology and to challenge existing stereotypes about scientists and engineers in the popular imagination. Over the past two decades, Sloan has partnered with some of the top film schools in the country—including AFI, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, NYU, UCLA and USC—and established annual awards in screenwriting and film production, along with an annual best-of-the best Student Grand Jury Prize administered by the Tribeca Film Institute. The Foundation also supports screenplay development programs with the Sundance Institute, Tribeca Film Institute, SFFILM, the Black List, the Athena Film Festival, and Film Independent’s Producing Lab and Fast Track program and has given early recognition to stand-out films such as The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, First Man, Searching, The Martian, and Hidden Figures. The Sloan pipeline has also helped develop such film projects as To Dust, The Sound of Silence, The Catcher Was a Spy, The Imitation Game, The House of Tomorrow, The Man Who Knew Infinity, Operator, and Experimenter. The Foundation has supported theatrical documentaries such as The Bit Player, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, Particle Fever, and Jacques Perrin’s Oceans.   

The Foundation has an active theater program and commissions about twenty science plays each year from the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, and the National Theatre in London, as well as supporting select productions across the country and abroad. Recent grants have supported Charly Evon Simpson’s Behind the Sheet, Lucy Kirkwood’s Mosquitoes, Chiara Atik’s BUMP, Nick Payne’s Constellations, Lucas Hnath’s Isaac’s Eye, and Anna Ziegler’s Photograph 51. The Foundation’s book program includes early support for Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, the best-selling book that became the highest grossing Oscar-nominated film of 2017 and continues to have a wide-ranging cultural impact.

For more information about the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, visit sloan.org.

 

About the Coolidge Corner Theatre

The Coolidge Corner Theatre is located in Brookline, Massachusetts, and is one of the nation’s most prominent independently operated movie theatres, run by the nonprofit Coolidge Corner Theatre Foundation. A beloved movie house, the Coolidge has been engaging audiences with the best in cinematic entertainment since 1933. In addition to premiere theatrical engagements of independent film and art house releases, the Coolidge presents numerous special programs including: Science on Screen®, high-definition live broadcasts from London’s National Theatre and world renowned opera and ballet companies, Big Screen Classics, midnight screenings, The Sounds of Silents®, and weekend kids’ programs. The Coolidge has won numerous awards and honors for its creative programming. For more information, visit www.coolidge.org.