Swans and stem cells: winners of this year's Imagine Science Film Festival

For the third year in a row I had the pleasure of serving as a judge for the Imagine Science Film Festival. Along with fellow judged neuroscientists David Eagelman and Darcy Kelley and documentary filmmaker Robb Moss, I watched a slew of short films that touched in one way or another on science. The awards were just announced, and so I thought I’d hunt around for some online sites where you can watch them, either as previews or in their entirety. Here’s what I found:

The Scientist Award went to the best short that depicts a scientist in an accurate and original way. We awarded it to “Chasing Birds in Beringia” by Stephani Gordon:

The Nature Scientific Merit Award went to the best short that incorporated science in a compelling narrative. The winner was
Eagleman Stag, by Mikey Pease. Here’s a trailer; the full movie is ten minutes long.

The Visual Science Award was given to the best short that depicts a science in a visually-engaging manner. This year’s winner was “Breast Stem Cells”
by Etsuko Uno & Drew Barry. Here’s their visualization:

There were also some movies that got honorable mentions. For the Scientific Merit, here’s the trailer to the creepy, understated “The Sierra Project”

and here’s “Yuri Lennon,” which packs a lot of drama into a very long shot at an astronomer’s face. This is the full movie, with German subtitles.

For the Scientist Award, here’s “E. chromi”:

and “Transgenic Spidergoats”:

For Visual Science, “How to Feed the World”:

And finally, “Do you know what nano means?”

The Nature’s People’s Choice Award, the best film voted by the Imagine Science Film Festival audience members, went to “Until,” a movie about longevity by Barry Gibb. If I find the video, I’ll post it.

Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to everyone who is putting science on film in one way or another!