This summer, we presented the New York Premiere of Orbit(Film). If your summer plans included living under a rock, you may have missed this, so here’s the deal: Cinemad‘s Mike Plante and our own Mark Elijah Rosenberg commissioned acclaimed filmmakers to each make a film about a planet, dealing with the science of outer space through creative and emotional storytelling and visual poetry. Some or all of the original source material comes from NASA footage, reinterpreted by each filmmaker to make a portrait of the respective planet, so that the avant garde of art may inspire the avant garde of science.
So for all you secret (and not so secret) space nerds floating around out there, here’s some good news:
Orbit(Film) is launching at a screening station near you!
THIS SATURDAY, October 22nd: Portland, Maine, sponsored by SPACE Gallery, showing at USM Southworth Planetarium
October 24th: San Francisco Film Society (double bill with Travis Wilkerson’s AN INJURY TO ONE)
November 9th: Northwest Film Forum, Seattle, WA
Orbit(Film) Spacesuits (and other merch) now on sale!
Check out their fall collection of space perks here.
Want to get your outer space on, no matter where you are?
Join the Orbit(Film) Astronaut Appreciation Society and get a DVD!
For all of you rock dwellers, here’s a reminder of the fantastic spaciness you’ll find on board Orbit(Film):
LOOK AT THE SUN (Brent Hoff | San Francisco, CA | 5 min.)
For thousands of years, humanity has watched the sun with a mixture of fear and awe, believing without knowing why, that our lives depend on its mysterious undulations. The sun has changed, our sense of wonder has not. Now more than ever, we must look at the sun.
MERCURY (Ben Coonley | Brooklyn, NY | 6 min.)
A mercurial cine-opera set to visuals gathered by NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft. Lyrics composed in collaboration with the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN).
VENUS (Jessica Oreck | New York, NY | 5 min.)
Jessica explores the inner-workings of our sister planet. Examining the atmospheric composition of Venus, this piece, narrated by Jackie Reynal, exposes a reminder of what could happen on Earth.
COPERNICUS RESURRECTED [EARTH] (Mike Plante | Los Angeles, CA | 5 min.)
A short note about Earth and a gentleman of our times.
I SEEN THE MOON (Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky | Brooklyn, NY | 4 min.)
Signs of life for this man may very well exist on the Moon.
NO MESSAGE RECEIVED [MARS] (Mark Elijah Rosenberg | Brooklyn, NY | 9 min.)
A little robot born on Mars. The introverted scientist who created it. A meta-fictional re-telling of NASA’s Mars Pathfinder mission, discovering a story about outcast people and forgotten technology, about wondrous things struggling for attention in busy worlds.
…THESE BLAZEING STARRS! [COMETS] (Deborah Stratman | Chicago, IL | 14 min.)
Since comets have been recorded, they’ve augured catastrophe, messiahs, upheaval and end times.
This will be a little film about these meteoric ice-cored fireballs and their historic ties to divination.
“These Blazeing Starrs!
Threaten the World with Famine, Plague, & Warrs…” Du Bartas, De cometis (1665)
JUPITER ELICIUS (Kelly Sears | Houston, TX | 4 min.)
A haunted meteorologist dreams of storms that are both closer and further away than he thought. His unshakable bravado is undone through fast winds and high pressure systems and a sense of duty.
SCAN PLATFORM PROBLEMS (CLOSE TO YOU) [SATURN] (Jacqueline Goss and Michael Gitlin | Tivoli, NY)
The most beautiful planet deconstructed, played with, put back together again.
URANUS (Bill Brown | Lubbock, Texas | 8 min.)
It is 2003. A spaceman takes a trip to Uranus. He is fleeing from the Earth in the month before a big, rich country invades a little country of little consequence for mysterious reasons.
NEPTUNE CALLING! (Poseidan | Austin, TX)
Neptune, in a true display of his personality, prank calls the other planets.
PLUTO DECLARATION (Travis Wilkerson | Denver, CO | 5 min.)
Restore the classical definition of planet!