{"id":35826,"date":"2022-04-08T09:43:12","date_gmt":"2022-04-08T07:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.krakowfilmfestival.pl\/?p=35826"},"modified":"2022-04-15T14:08:27","modified_gmt":"2022-04-15T12:08:27","slug":"the-best-scientific-documentaries-in-the-docsscience-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.krakowfilmfestival.pl\/en\/the-best-scientific-documentaries-in-the-docsscience-series\/","title":{"rendered":"The best scientific documentaries in the Docs+Science series."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Where the wild strawberries grow.<\/h5>\n

“If I have been feeling worried or sad during the day, I have a habit of recalling scenes from childhood to calm me”, says Dr Eberhard Isak Borg, the protagonist of <\/b>Wild Strawberries<\/i><\/b>, the 1957 Ingmar Bergman film. And it is to memory, to reminiscence, to the process of reaching back in time that this year’s Docs+Science series at the Krakow Film Festival will be devoted.<\/b><\/p>\n

Science is often the study of memory. Sometimes it is recorded in non-material culture, sometimes in tangible matter – in rock, in ice, in the brain, in genes. When we observe the cosmos, we see its past and not its present state. And even when performing a physical experiment we only record past events. Thinking about the global future, we also take a kind of memory as our point of reference – the image of the planet from better times, before the Anthropocene. –<\/em> says Karol Jałochowski – curator of the Docs+Science series<\/strong>, journalist, documentary filmmaker, editor-in-chief of the popular science website Pulsar. <\/p>\n

Structured recollection, a collective return to the place ‘where the wild strawberries grow’, is an integral part of cognition. It does not always bring peace, as it was with Dr Borg, but it isn’t always a form of escapism and always brings knowledge. Memories are a priceless resource. This, among other things, is what the films we have selected for you this year are about.<\/em> – Jałochowski adds. <\/p>\n

Sometimes learning is a kind of organised madness. Whole areas of knowledge owe their existence to obsessed scholars – such as the German Max Schönwetter. His collection of nearly 20,000 bird egg specimens is invaluable to ovology. Their lime shells hold the knowledge – the memory – of 4,000 different bird species. Pim Zwier’s mature documentary O, Collecting Eggs Despite the Times<\/i><\/b>, which plays subtly with irony and seriousness, is about more than that. It also raises the question of whether passion, even scientific passion, absolves one from moral responsibility.<\/p>\n

Pleistocene Park<\/i><\/b> (dir. Luke Griswold Tergis) isn’t the only documentary about the boundary between brilliance and madness – but it’s certainly one of the most entertaining. The director follows a daring attempt to restart the ancient ecosystem of remote Siberia, returning it to the state recorded in Pleistocene fossils. It is undertaken by geophysicist Sergei Zimov, aided by his pathologically optimistic son Nikita. Together they are attempting to reverse climate trends by means of small-scale geoengineering. We cannot afford not to do experiments, they explain, infecting the audience with enthusiasm.<\/p>\n\n\n