Indie films about science for your watch list

The nineteen-year partnership between the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Sundance Institute continues, supporting artfully-told stories about science, technology and human engagement. This year’s winning projects portray underrepresented figures in conflict with their environment, who turn to science in one form or another, according to Doron Weber, VP and Program Director at the Foundation.

Alexis Gambi’s “Son of Monarchs”, that received the Feature Film Prize, “depicts an immigrant scientist’s effort to understand nature and his own family past as he crosses boundaries of time, nationality and species”. Three other winning films tell the stories of a Black pharmacist, who becomes a drug dealer to support herself (Pharmacopeia by Tania Taiwo), brilliant women who defied sexism and discrimination to become astronomers (The Harvard Computers by Jennifer Lee and Graham Sack), and the 1958 plan to use nuclear weapons to blast a new harbor among the indigenous population of Alaska (Chariot by Alyssa Loh).