Tag: Science on Screen

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Uptown Launches Second Season of Science on Screen® Pop-Up Series

Uptown Film Center launches the second season of its Science on Screen® pop-up series, on Monday, October 5, 7pm, with Peter Weir’s sci-fi film, The Truman Show, starring Jim Carrey and Laura Linney.

Science on Screen® is a nationwide initiative of the Coolidge Corner Theatre in partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation that uses film to engage audiences with science, technology, and the questions they raise in our everyday lives. The series reflects Uptown Film Center’s commitment to science literacy and the kind of thoughtful, educational programming it plans to offer regularly when its permanent home opens. All screenings will take place at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater at West 95th Street, west of Broadway

“What makes Science on Screen® so compelling is the opportunity to use very different kinds of films to explore questions that are increasingly relevant to our lives,” says Ira Deutchman, President, Uptown Film Center. “Through comedy, documentary and science-fiction satire, these films tackle subjects ranging from technology and surveillance to sustainable farming and the future of human reproduction. Together, they show how movies can entertain us while also challenging us to think more deeply about the world around us.”

The Truman Show explores surveillance, privacy and the increasingly blurred boundaries between technology, entertainment and everyday life. Guest speaker Professor Michael W. Morris, the author of Tribal (2024), spent his career studying how shared cultural codes and identities influence the way we think and act. He will address the question, “Who Gets to Decide What is Real?” in a pre-screening introduction, exploring what the film reveals about the invisible scripts that guide our lives, whether we notice them or not.

Next film in the series, on Monday, November 9, is the critically acclaimed documentary film, The Biggest Little Farm, which follows John and Molly Chester as they leave Los Angeles to transform 200 acres of depleted, drought-stricken land into a thriving and radically diverse farm. What begins as an idealistic dream of living in harmony with nature becomes a humbling exploration of biodiversity, resilience, and the delicate balance that sustains all living things. Guest Speaker to be announced.

The last film in the series is Sophie Barthes’ witty 2023 indie film, The Pod Generation, Monday, December 14. The film follows a New York couple (Emilia Clarke, Chiwetel Ejiofor) who contemplate growing their baby in a detachable artificial womb, or “pod,” provided by a powerful tech company. Dr. Elizabeth Reis has taught classes on medical ethics, gender and bioethics, and reproductive technologies. She is the author of Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex (2009), published in an expanded second edition in 2021; Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England.

The Science on Screen series is supported, in part, by public funds from the NYC Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) in partnership with the NY City Council and the office of New York City Council Majority Leader Shaun Abreu and Speaker Julie Menin.

Tickets are $7/adults, $5 for seniors and students, plus a $5 facility fee (at check-out). All screenings take place at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater at West 95th Street, west of Broadway.

Details and tickets>>

Science on Screen®: THE POD GENERATION – Who owns the future of reproduction?

THE POD GENERATION
by Sophie Barthes
with special guest speaker Elizabeth Reis 

Part of the SCIENCE ON SCREEN® Series
An initiative of the Coolidge Corner Theatre in partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

THE POD GENERATION
2023, USA/France, Sci-fi comedy/satire, 110 minutes
Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize  at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival

In Sophie Barthes’ witty, unsettling The Pod Generation, a New York couple (Emilia Clarke, Chiwetel Ejiofor) is offered a tantalizing new possibility: instead of pregnancy, they can grow their baby in a detachable artificial womb, or “pod”, provided by a powerful tech company. For Rachel, a rising executive, it promises freedom and convenience. For Alvy, a botanist who believes in the messy, organic rhythms of nature, it represents something much harder to embrace.

Winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize at Sundance, The Pod Generation uses a near-future fantasy to ask questions that are becoming increasingly real: Could artificial wombs transform pregnancy and parenting? Would they liberate us from the physical demands of reproduction, or create new forms of control? And when technology can make reproduction more convenient, who gets to decide what progress looks like?

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Elizabeth Reis is Professor Emerita in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department at the University of Oregon and recently retired from the Macaulay Honors College at CUNY, where she taught classes on medical ethics; gender and bioethics; and reproductive technologies. She is the author of Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex (2009), published in an expanded second edition in 2021; Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England; and the editor of several books, including American Sexual Histories. She is a member of the Ethics Committee at New York Presbyterian Weill Cornell Hospital and an editor of Nursing Clio. You can read more about her work at lizziereis.com.

Tickets:
$7/adult (plus $5 Symphony Space Facility Fee added at checkout)
$5/seniors & students (plus $5 Symphony Space Facility Fee added at checkout)

BUY TICKETS HERE

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the NYC Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) in partnership with the City Council and the office of NY City Council Majority Leader Shaun Abreu and Speaker Julie Menin

Science on Screen®: THE BIGGEST LITTLE FARM

THE BIGGEST LITTLE FARM
a film by John Chester
with special guest speaker TBA

Part of the SCIENCE ON SCREEN® Series
An initiative of the Coolidge Corner Theatre in partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

THE BIGGEST LITTLE FARM
John Chester, 2018, 91 min, USA, Documentary

What does it take to bring a dying piece of land back to life? The Biggest Little Farm follows John and Molly Chester as they leave Los Angeles behind and set out to transform 200 acres of depleted, drought-stricken land into a thriving and radically diverse farm. But nature has its own plans. As coyotes, snails, pests, predators, drought, and unexpected animal friendships complicate their vision, the Chesters discover that every problem is part of a larger, interconnected system.

Filmed over eight years, John Chester’s extraordinary documentary is both an intimate story of ambition and perseverance and a vivid lesson in the astonishing complexity of the natural world. What begins as an idealistic dream of living in harmony with nature becomes a humbling exploration of biodiversity, resilience, and the delicate balance that sustains all living things.

Tickets:
$7/adult (plus $5 Symphony Space Facility Fee added at checkout)
$5/seniors & students (plus $5 Symphony Space Facility Fee added at checkout)

BUY TICKETS HERE

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the NYC Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) in partnership with the City Council and the office of NY City Council Majority Leader Shaun Abreu and Speaker Julie Menin

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Uptown Film Announces Two 2026 Winter/Spring Film Series

Grant from NYC Councilperson Shaun Abreu
Underwrites Science on Screen®

Uptown Partners for First Time with New York Historical
for Tales from an Immigrant City series

The Uptown is excited to announce it will be hosting two new film series this winter: Science on Screen® will be held at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia, beginning on February 24, and Tales of the Immigrant City will be screened at the New York Historical, beginning on March 20.

The Science on Screen® series is a pioneering, nationwide film program launched in 2005 by the Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline, MA, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, to promote science literacy through partnerships with nonprofit organizations across the country.  As described by the Coolidge, the program “creatively pairs screenings of classic, cult, science fiction, and documentary films with lively presentations by notable experts from the world of science and technology.”

Hidden Figures will open the Uptown’s Science on Screen series on Feb 24.

The Uptown’s three-film Science on Screen series will include Hidden Figures, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, and HER, with introductions by Dr. Moiya McTier, astrophysicist and folklorist; Sarah Rose Siskind, science and comedy writer; and Janna Levin, theoretical cosmologist and professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College.  Tickets for the three films are on sale now.

Beginning in March, the Uptown partners with the New York Historical to present three films focused on the immigrant experience in New York City: In America, with introduction by award-winning novelist Colum McCann; Hester Street (guest TBA); and En El Septimo Dia (On the Seventh Day), with filmmaker Jim McKay. Tickets go on sale in late February.

Uptown president Ira Deutchman and vice president Adeline Monzier, who leads our education initiatives, note that these series demonstrate the kind of programming we expect to offer on a regular basis when we finally open our doors (hopefully in late 2028). It also points out how partnerships–with local nonprofit organizations and arthouses across the country–are integral to our mission. “We especially want to thank the New York Historical for partnering with us on our Tales of an Immigrant City film series, and to Councilman Shaun Abreu and Thomas Campbell Jackson for underwriting our Science on Screen series,” says Ira. “These partnerships and grants are allowing us to offer exceptionally curated, thoughtful film series to our community, at affordable prices, despite the fact that we don’t have a theater yet.”

A pop-up spring/summer series will be hosted again this year, as well, beginning in late May or June. Last year’s very successful ten-film series, For the Love of Cinema, played at several venues in upper Manhattan.