Join an ill-fated scientific revolution with the… | Little White Lies

Incoming

Join an ill-fat­ed sci­en­tif­ic rev­o­lu­tion with the first trail­er for Space­ship Earth

21 Apr 2020

Words by Charles Bramesco

A group of people in red outfits standing in front of a large glass greenhouse structure with lush greenery inside.
A group of people in red outfits standing in front of a large glass greenhouse structure with lush greenery inside.
The stranger-than-fic­tion doc­u­men­tary tracks the fate of Bios­phere 2, a self-con­tained geo­des­ic dome.

In the year 1991, a team of eight intre­pid vol­un­teers sealed them­selves in a self-con­tained geo­des­ic dome called Bios­phere 2 for a dura­tion of two years. Their goal? First and fore­most sur­vival, and beyond that, new insight on the pos­si­bil­i­ty of sus­tain­ing life with­in its own envi­ron­ment and atmos­phere. If all went well, this would’ve been the first step toward estab­lish­ing liv­able colonies on the moon, Mars, wher­ev­er the lim­its of human imag­i­na­tion might stop.

All did not go well. The new doc­u­men­tary Space­ship Earth chron­i­cles this bizarre and fas­ci­nat­ing foot­note in the his­to­ry of sci­en­tif­ic inquiry, from its ori­gins as an exper­i­men­tal the­atre troupe’s effort to free them­selves from the bonds of soci­ety to its even­tu­al out­come as a media cir­cus can­ni­bal­ized by a skep­ti­cal pub­lic. In the sto­ry of a quixot­ic project car­ried out by super-smart hip­pies, direc­tor Matt Wolf finds a para­ble of the envi­ron­men­tal­ism movement’s utopi­an rise and sober­ing fall.

The film impressed crowds up at Sun­dance when it pre­miered back in Jan­u­ary, lead­ing to a dis­tri­b­u­tion deal from NEON (the stu­dio that squeezed a dou­ble-nom­i­na­tion out of niche non­fic­tion title Hon­ey­land for this year’s Oscars, a heart­en­ing sign for this film’s future prospects). Today brings the first trail­er, along with the news that the film will be launch­ing every­where” on 8 May, a propo­si­tion that requires a bit of cre­ativ­i­ty to real­ize under the restric­tions of coronavirus.

NEON has employed a nov­el new strat­e­gy in which they’ll offer busi­ness­es – not just movie the­aters, but muse­ums, book­stores, restau­rants, you-name-it – the oppor­tu­ni­ty to become a part­ner” and host the dig­i­tal stream of the film on their own web site, retain­ing half the price of all vir­tu­al tick­et sales.” In addi­tion to select dri­ve-in the­aters and cityscape pro­jec­tions, with specifics on that to come, view­ers will have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to sup­port a busi­ness they care about when pur­chas­ing the film.

Any inter­est­ed enter­prise can fill out the form and apply to host the film now; already on board are such unlike­ly par­ties as the NYC Triv­ia League, Brook­lyn eatery Locan­da Vinii & Olie, and the Tal­cott Moun­tain Sci­ence Cen­ter. How appro­pri­ate, to try out an exper­i­men­tal dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem on a film such as this, ori­ent­ed as it is around think­ing out­side the box and chang­ing the sta­tus quo.

Space­ship Earth comes to, well, not cin­e­mas, but every­where else, on 8 May.

You might like

Accessibility Settings

Text

Applies the Open Dyslexic font, designed to improve readability for individuals with dyslexia.

Applies a more readable font throughout the website, improving readability.

Underlines links throughout the website, making them easier to distinguish.

Adjusts the font size for improved readability.

Visuals

Reduces animations and disables autoplaying videos across the website, reducing distractions and improving focus.

Reduces the colour saturation throughout the website to create a more soothing visual experience.

Increases the contrast of elements on the website, making text and interface elements easier to distinguish.