The Frida Cinema is excited to launch its third annual Science on Screen® film series with Adam McKay's 2021 sci-fi sociopolitical satire, Don't Look Up, followed by a presentation and discussion via Zoom by Dr. Carl Bergstrom, Evolutionary Biologist at the University of Washington. This first of three Science on Screen presentations will be held on Tuesday, March 28th, in celebration of nationwide theatrical event 2023 National Evening of Science on Screen. The event and Q&A will be moderated by Chapman University lecturer and Frida Cinema board member Atalia Lopez!
Don't Look Up stars Jennifer Lawrence as MSU doctoral candidate Kate Dibiasky, who after discovering a massive asteroid headed is directly towards Earth, quickly deduces along with her professor (Leonardo DiCaprio) that its size and trajectory pose a threat to the very existence to humanity. Unfortunately, their findings are met with collective skepticism from both mass media and narrow-minded -- as well as opportunistic -- politicians, leaving Kate and Randall with no choice but to spread their own independent message. As the comet draws closer, the divide between science and politics swells to its own meteoric conflict, with the voices of dissent going through increasingly surreal lengths to convince humanity that there is nothing to fear.
Named one of the top ten films of 2021 by the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute, Don't Look Up broadens its sharp satire through a damning rage towards several American institutions. After the screening, we are honored to speak via Zoom with Evolutionary Biologist Dr. Carl Bergstrom via Zoom, notable for his work The Science of Bullshit: Why the Disinformation and Misinformation That Propagate Online Should Become a Top Scientific Priority
ABOUT SCIENCE ON SCREEN
The Coolidge Corner Theatre's Science on Screen series has enhanced film and scientific literacy with this popular program, which launched at the Coolidge in 2005. In partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and its pioneering nationwide film program, the Coolidge has expanded Science on Screen to 96 cinemas nationwide. Throughout the academic year, SoS creatively pairs screenings of classic, cult, science fiction, and documentary films with lively presentations by notable experts from the world of science and technology. Each film is used as a jumping-off point for a speaker to introduce current research or technological advances in a manner that engages popular culture audiences.
ABOUT DR. CARL BERGSTROM
Dr. Bergstrom is an Evolutionary Biologist, and Professor of Biology at the University of Washington. Though trained in evolutionary biology and mathematical population genetics, he enjoys working across disciplines and integrating ideas across the span of the natural and social sciences. The unifying theme running throughout his work is the concept of information. Within biology, he studies how communication evolves and how the process of evolution encodes information in genomes. In the philosophy and sociology of science, he studies how norms and institutions influence scholars' research strategies and, in turn, our scientific understanding of the world. Within informatics, he studies how citations and other traces of scholarly activity can be used to better navigate the overwhelming volume of scholarly literature. Lately he's become concerned with the spread of disinformation on social networks, and interested in figuring out what can be done about it.
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