5th Annual Edition
Imagine Science Film Festival
Feature films, experimental shorts, talks + exhibition
5th Annual Edition - Wednesday - Saturday, Jan 30 - Feb 2 @ Various Times
Crisis. Entropy. Extinction. Survival — the theme for this edition.
The 5th annual edition of Imagine Science Film Festival Abu Dhabi (ISFF) brings four days of feature films, experimental shorts, talks, and an exhibition. See the full program below.
Previously in this Event Series
Feature Film and Awards Ceremony
The Experimental City
Preceded by a Gallery Talk and the short film Seoul Machine City
The Minnesota Experimental City project was a futuristic attempt to solve urban problems by creating a full-size city from scratch in the isolated woods of northern Minnesota.
Shorts Film Program - Family Matinee
Conversations with Nature
7 Short Films - Preceded by a Gallery Talk
Sensations of plants! Oryxes going home! Unique human-animal bonds!
Shorts Film Program
Evolving Eyes and Revised Societies
7 Short Films - Preceded by a Gallery Talk
How we see the world shapes the world in turn.
Feature Film
K2 and the Invisible Footmen
Preceded by the short film Ex Nihilo
Located on the border between Pakistan and China, K2 is the second-highest mountain on Earth. For many climbers, it is an even greater prize than Everest, with limited routes, a steeper ascent, and a harder push to its summit.
Opening Feature
Three Identical Strangers
Preceded by the short film Mira
Three strangers are reunited by astonishing coincidence after being born identical triplets, separated at birth, and adopted by three different families.
Imagine Science Film Festival
This year, ISFF takes a hard look ahead at the high stakes for all life on an Earth facing climate change, species loss, nuclear proliferation, and the imminent exhaustion of our energy resources. Existence itself is not assured.
But wherever we consider such direly high stakes, we can also aspire to a better world. New technologies constantly open new possibilities and sociopolitical change opens the way for new ideas to take hold. For every dystopia, a corresponding utopia may be within reach. It may be a struggle, but the record of all life is that of an eon-spanning fight to stay alive.
As a city carved out of the desert, Abu Dhabi knows the challenges of human existence in an inhospitable environment, and the ingenuity that allows us to thrive nonetheless. It also knows well the global reliance on the oil it produces. SURVIVAL, here, takes on a sharper image against high temperatures, vital desalination operations, vast but finite resources, and rapid adaptation to changing conditions. Here we may approach, in microcosm, our most vital global questions.
Comprising a film festival, an art exhibition, workshops, gallery talks, discussions, and more, Imagine Science Abu Dhabi brings together cutting-edge science, art, and film from the Gulf, the Middle East, and the world in an international conversation. This year that conversation will include tumultuous natural histories and speculative futures, the deaths of stars and radical life extension, everything that concerns the crucial process of SURVIVAL.