Science at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival and Beyond

Now in its 15th year, The Tribeca Film Festival of New York City has a long-standing commitment to showcasing films with “realistic and compelling” science and technology stories, dating back to its founding sponsorship by The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. That often means digging deeply into topics in the headlines, like last year’s Short Documentary Award winner, Body Team 12, did with the Ebola outbreak in Liberia.

This year’s festival made some headlines of its own, when founder Robert De Niro selected, and then, under pressure, rejected Vaxxed, a documentary by disgraced doctor Andrew Wakefield that rehashes his debunked theory that vaccines cause autism. Over the past couple of days De Niro said he regretted pulling the film. The actor, who has an autistic son, told NBC Today April 13 that “there is something there” and now recommends that people see it.

We won’t comment on de Niro’s qualifications to make judgments on what’s valid and what isn’t in autism research. But we can tell you about a whole world of wonderful science films including features, documentaries, and science fiction shorts that remain in the festival program. They’re packed with undeniably sound science, covering topics from edible insects to in vitro fertilization. Be sure to look for them as they make their way to other film festivals, into theaters, and onto online platforms.

How does one become happy? In The Happy Film, New York City graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister set out to answer this question by trying three approaches on himself for three months at a time: meditation, cognitive therapy, and medication. He documented the results in meticulous notes and inventive typographic interludes: animated, constructed, or even, once, danced scenes that distill his findings into epigrams. Sagmeister’s notes include detailed numerical scales of his own internal states as he underwent each experimental treatment, fell in and out of love, and launched a major art show. The resulting film is equally personal, thoughtful, and visually arresting. And while Sagmeister’s findings may be largely anecdotal, he sees the experiment through to the very end and consistently frames his questions well enough to generate genuine conversation and reflection.

Andreas Johnsen’s BUGS opens with hard statistics: The world population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that this will require a 70% increase in food production, including raising insects for high protein food. Ben Reade and Josh Evans of the Nordic Food Lab set off on a global tour to make sure our insects are as delicious as they are sustainable. Munching their way through Kenyan termite queens, Mexican larva tacos, and intentionally wormy cheeses in Italy they was poetic about mouth feel and flavor nuances like fine wine connoisseurs. As Reade observes in the film, insects are hardly stranger than the foods we think nothing of eating, noting that his only food poisoning on six continents came from a burger in Sydney: “The weirdest food, really, if you think about it, was that burger. Because that burger probably contained … traces of 500 different cows. And there’s nothing natural about that whatsoever.” Which underscores a major problem the film explores: the global food production and processing system is driven by profit, not flavor or sustainability. While BUGS may run dangerously close to a reality-TV cavalcade of “can you believe they ate that” moments, it’s this deeper reflection that gives it significance. Though it’s clear that there’s no simple solution to our food problems, cultivating new protein options can’t hurt. Adventurous audience members may even find themselves wishing that the theater would serve roasted Australian grubs along with the popcorn.