Both scientific discussion and science fiction have long considered that humanity’s future may lie beyond the Earth. Certainly, we will need to look outwards as a species should we desire to outlive our solar system’s sun, if only in another five billion years, but conditions on the Earth itself may encourage an earlier departure. In this program, disastrous developments close to home, both all too real (a public health emergency surrounding waste disposal) and fictional (a mysteriously plummeting birthrate) are juxtaposed against looks outwards into the immensity of the universe, as space programs are prepared and the Voyager probes become the furthest-traveling human-made objects ever. In between these worlds, scientists in orbit consider a troubled planet and interplanetary jazz musician Sun Ra, playing a concert in Egypt, finds disappointment in terrestrial social conditions.

The program is as follows

• Submarine (21 min / Mounia Akl / Lebanon / 2016)
• The Last Interview (10 min / Mohamed Haroun Alhamadi / UAE / 2015) Voyagers (15 min / Santiago Menghini / Canada / 2015)
• Pepsi, cola, water? (9 min / Tom Bogaert / Egypt / 2015)
• Black (14 min / Tomasz Popakul / Poland / 2016)
• Shreds (12 min / Luana Bassil/ Lebanon / 2016)
• Infinitude (5 min / Scott Portingale / Canada / 2016)