November 10th marks World Science Day for Peace and Development, proclaimed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2001. Popular science films and TV series, as well as film festivals, help build bridges between science and society.
Production Center of the Film Studio named after. M. Gorky produces a large amount of popular science content for a wide audience. Over the past 5 years, 17 popular science films and series have been published with a total running time of more than 50 hours. This year saw the premieres of the full-length popular science films “Through Dark Matter” and “Territory of Attachment,” as well as the series “Science Fiction.”
First season of the project “Science fiction” released in July 2024. The educational series, created with the support of the Internet Development Institute (ANO IRI), talks about the possible future of the planet and people in a language accessible to everyone. Teenagers Nastya and Timofey explore a variety of fictional and even very real situations in the series. They ask questions along the lines of “What if…?” artificial intelligence named Clio. This abbreviation means “Linear Environment Simulation Capsule”, inside which the characters travel through virtual universes. After all, the Clio neural network is capable of modeling the most fantastic worlds as realistically as possible based on available scientific data.
Source: press service of the Film Studio named after. M. Gorky.
For example, what would have happened if dinosaurs had not gone extinct? What will happen if the Earth stops rotating? What will happen if aliens come to us? What would the world be like if there were zombies in it? What if all the people disappear or the sun goes out? Or will people be able to fly like birds?
The first season of the series consists of 16 short episodes lasting up to 10 minutes. All episodes can be watched completely free on KION, as well as in the official community of the Film Studio. M. Gorky
on the social network VKontakte, where the project has already collected more than 5.8 million views.
All episodes of Science Fiction used real future technologies to create digital models of the world. The scenery inside and outside the capsule was built against the backdrop of large LED screens in the modern virtual production pavilion of the Film Studio named after. M. Gorky “55.8 Gorky Virtual Studio”. And during filming, young actors Anastasia Kornicheva and Zakhar Pakhomov could actually see the future simulated by the Clio neural network.
In 2024, two popular science films from the Production Center of the Film Studio named after. M. Gorky were first presented at the IV festival of contemporary scientific cinema FANK and received awards. Then both films took part in the competition program of the XIX International Festival of Popular Science Cinema and Research Films “World of Knowledge” in St. Petersburg. Based on the results of the Grand Prix review. S. Kapitsa received the film “Territory of Attachment”, and the film “Through Dark Matter” was awarded a special jury prize.
Source: press service of the Film Studio named after. M. Gorky.
Movie “Through Dark Matter”filmed with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, became the first Russian author’s film about the Large Hadron Collider and the CERN laboratory. Filming took place in Switzerland and France, as well as in Dubna near Moscow. Russian and European scientists who devoted themselves to the search for the Higgs boson and the foundations of the universe show their daily lives and talk about their scientific work.
The heroes of the picture “Territory of Attachment” became zoological scientists and wild animal researchers who work in protected areas in different regions of Russia. Some raise crane chicks and teach them to fly, others help the cubs left by the mother bear to get stronger and learn to live in the forest. Some are nursing leopards, others are studying the habitat of the snow leopard. They are united by a sincere interest in the animal world and a commitment to preserving natural diversity. But they understand how important it is for the animal’s future life to maintain a distance from a person and prevent attachment. The film was shot with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation.
Source: press service of the Film Studio named after. M. Gorky.
One of the most popular among viewers was the favorite newsreel of our grandparents, revived in a completely new, up-to-date format. “I want to know everything!”. The educational series has a record audience rating of 9 points on Kinopoisk, and is practically the leader in the category of Russian documentary series. This is indeed a very high and rare rating on Kinopoisk.
Since 2021, 2 seasons have been released, with a total of 110 episodes. This is an encyclopedia series in which the most interesting facts – from the structure of the Sahara to the features of human cryo-freezing – are explained simply and entertainingly. Each episode of the new “I Want to Know Everything!” lasts 12 minutes and consists of three stories on different topics. The series was created in collage animation format. Every fact from the series can be trusted. Its authors are professional journalists; the project also employs scientific consultants and editors.
Source: press service of the Film Studio named after. M. Gorky.
Special season of the popular series “I Want to Know Everything. Your guide to Financial Healthy Lifestyle”, created by the Production Center of the Film Studio named after. M. Gorky, with the support of the Internet Development Institute (ANO IRI), introduces the structure of the global financial system and simple rules for handling personal funds, and also tells the history of money.
How to build a strong economy? How much do Russians pay in taxes? How to calculate the standard of living in the regions using the borscht index? You can learn about this from the series “I want to know everything. Your guide to FinHealthy Lifestyle” on KION and VKontakte. Or about how the modern economy works: why the dollar is the main reserve currency and how countries are reducing their dependence on payments in dollars, what the level of GDP indicates, what public debt is and how much our country owes today, how the World Bank and the Central Bank work Bank of Russia.
Another popular project can be watched for free on VKontakte, this is an Internet series “Soviet design”. Packaging, posters, fonts, dishes, clothing, toys, furniture, cars and electronics – the series will introduce you to unique things and solutions that shaped the way of life in the USSR. A total of 20 episodes of 15 minutes each. The heroes in each series are leading researchers of the topic – historians, art critics, collectors, as well as successful Russian designers. The series was created jointly with the Amur Waves company as part of the national project “Culture”, winner of the Internet Development Institute competition for creating Internet content for young people.
Popular science mini-series “The World of Houseplants” in an accessible form, he tells the most interesting and useful facts – from the history of home floriculture to the possibility of communication between plants. The series consists of eight episodes of 15 minutes each. Most of them are devoted to important aspects of care: soil, water, light, air, reproduction, disease. In addition, viewers will see the most common species in their natural habitat and watch scientific experiments.
Source: press service of the Film Studio named after. M. Gorky.
Viewers of the series “The Dance Gene”
will witness a live experiment using modern methods of sports genetics. The heroes of the project are twins with identical DNA. Experts evaluate how practicing different types of folk dances objectively affects their genes. Stars, professional dancers and masters of national dance will join in the conversation about the secret of success.
Among the popular science projects of the Producer Center of the Film Studio named after. M. Gorky also the film “Your move, Queen!” about women in the world of chess, films “Born from Babylon” about the history of simultaneous translation, “God Ex Machina” about Soviet cybernetics. And also a two-season series “Who sews well in Rus’” about Russian designers from different regions of Russia who use national motifs to create their collections of clothing and accessories, a series about entrepreneurs from different regions of the country “Small but proud” and project “Intelligence. Start”.
Also Film Studio named after. M. Gorky annually holds the International Festival of Popular Science Cinema and Research Films “World of Knowledge” with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and the Committee for Culture of St. Petersburg. This is a large-scale interdisciplinary project at the intersection of science and art, exploring the possibilities of translating scientific knowledge into the language of cinema – the first and only one in the northern capital. The mission of the festival is to popularize scientific and research cinema, create new opportunities for self-realization of directors and artists.
As part of the 19th film festival “World of Knowledge”, which took place on September 19–22, 2024 in St. Petersburg, more than 50 films from Russia, Spain, the USA, Kyrgyzstan, India, Iran and China were shown. These films were selected from more than 200 works submitted at the qualifying stage. In addition to the International Competition, this year the National Competition was highlighted for the first time. It presented a panorama of the best domestic popular science films over the past two years. Viewers saw seven documentaries about natural phenomena, biochemical and physical processes, legendary scientists, culture and art. Another 35 films were shown in the out-of-competition program.
Today, many films are being created about scientific research, discoveries, and innovations. Thanks to the universal language of cinema, complex phenomena take on a more understandable and simple form. Thanks to the film festival, viewers were able to see films that are not always available to watch in the public domain, and also studied the specifics of popular science and documentary films, learned about scientific and research problems reflected in world cinema, thanks to the educational block of the film festival.
In addition, from January to April 2024, at the exhibition-forum “Russia”, schoolchildren took part in intensive laboratories from the Film Studio named after. M. Gorky on the basics of creating popular science cinema. The classes took place in the Atomarium, an interactive zone in pavilion No. 19 ATOM. The curators of the program were masters of the youth creative community – the Film Campus of the Gorky Film Studio. Over 90 schoolchildren took part in the project, and the result of each intensive course was a short educational popular science film, which will be combined into the popular science almanac “Journey of Thought.” The young authors reflected in their films the nature and principles of physical phenomena, and also tested them experimentally. The film talked about exhibits that can still be seen today in the Atomarium pavilion: the Antikythera Mechanism, the Chebotaev Pendulum, the Archimedes Screw, the Faraday Cage, etc. A series of master classes was developed as part of the interdepartmental cultural and educational project “Culture for Schoolchildren” with the assistance of program “Territory of Culture of Rosatom” (organized by the Ministry of Culture of Russia and the Ministry of Education of Russia, the Center for Cultural Strategies and Project Management (ROSKULTPROEKT) and the Russian Cultural Foundation).
Based on materials from the press service of the Film Studio named after. M. Gorky.
Source: www.nkj.ru
