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FILM FESTIVAL there, it gained unauthorized access to the personal information of 87 million networked profiles. The company used this information

Science at Sundance to collect voter data on behalf of ’s on March 21, 2019 and Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns, An entrepreneur’s ambitious health care start-up ends in indictment. A teenager with the goal of influencing the 2016 election in Malawi saves his village with a brilliant feat of engineering. A community through devious targeted advertising. A com- works around the clock to save a tiny porpoise inching ever closer to extinction. bination of investigative journalism, lawsuits, From a Holocaust survivor’s candid sex advice to a insider’s and whistleblowers broke the story, leading in 2018 to Cambridge Analytica’s demise and shocking congressional testimony, the science and technology stories told at this founder ’s stone- year’s Sundance Film Festival were as riveting as they were timely. The festival, walling testimony before the U.S. Congress. held in January and February in the snowy ski town of Park City, Utah, is now in its The Great Hack follows Parsons School of 34th year. The 2019 theme—“Risk Independence”—emphasized the organization’s Design professor David Carroll, who sued Cambridge Analytica to find out what infor- commitment to provocative themes and experimental storytelling. “Art can’t spark mation the company had about him. Car- conversation if it’s playing it safe,” summarized the Sundance Institute’s executive roll serves as a champion of individual data director, Keri Putnam. Read on to see what our reviewers thought of 10 featured protection, appearing thoughtful and deter- fi lms sure to spark conversation in scientifi c circles. —Valerie Thompson mined. Followed at much greater length is , Cambridge Analytica busi- ness director turned whistleblower. A prob- lem for the film is that Kaiser comes across Great Hack, Karim Amer and Jehane Nou- as unlikable—her motivation opaque and The Great Hack jaim’s documentary about the Facebook– her politics opportunistic. As the pressure Reviewed by Robert S. Krauss1 Cambridge Analytica scandal. on her mounts, however, details emerge Cambridge Analytica, the British political that humanize some of her choices and sug- Under what circumstances should your consulting firm founded by American far- gest that she is more sympathetic than she personal information on social media be right players Robert Mercer and Stephen first appears. shared, and who should be the gatekeeper? Bannon, started its quest to gain access to The Great Hack is complex and suspense- These are among the most important ques- personal data with an online survey taken ful. It also has some terrific CGI animation.

tions facing society and are the focus of The by 300,000 consenting Facebook users. From The film screened at Sundance was too long D’ALESSANDRO GABY ILLUSTRATION:

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at well over 2 hours and would benefit from relentless promotion of the company led to editing before its appearance on . a video trail that the film capitalizes on, of- The Elephant Queen The issues it explores will not have been fering viewers a chronicle of her mendacity. Reviewed by Michael D. Shapiro2 solved by then. It is remarkable to watch the evolution and on March 21, 2019 increasing brazenness of her lies. In the visually stunning documentary The The Great Hack, Karim Amer, , The Inventor makes good use of inter- Elephant Queen, a violent thunderstorm directors, Netfl ix, 2019, 139 minutes. views with journalists who were taken in by brings renewed life to a watering hole in Holmes, as well as Wall Street Journal re- what narrator Chiwetel Ejiofor refers to as porter John Carreyrou, who first broke the “the Kingdom” region of Kenya’s Tsavo Na- story of her deception. Much-deserved screen tional Park. The area is home to an elephant The Inventor time is also given to two young Theranos em- herd led by 50-year-old matriarch Athena, Reviewed by Robert S. Krauss1 ployees who went public with their doubts at one of the last of the massive tuskers. When great personal risk. Tyler Shultz (grandson of drought seizes the Kingdom and the wa- “I don’t have many secrets,” says Elizabeth Theranos board member George Shultz) and tering hole dries up, most animals flee or Holmes at the outset of The Inventor, which Erika Cheung faced down Theranos’s legal burrow underground. However, Athena tells the story of the rise and fall of her com- team, led by the formidable David Boies, and must choose whether to embark on a peril- pany, Theranos. In 2003 at the age of 19, helped unravel the fraud. ous trek to another refuge or delay migra- Holmes set out to transform the health care The film makes the case that Holmes tion to allow a weakened family member to industry, promising a technology that could was a true believer, unable to admit, even recover. The Elephant Queen appeared in conduct a large number of tests by using to herself, that she had lied. Although this the Sundance Kids program, but the film small blood samples derived from a finger- rings true, it’s hard to imagine that at some unflinchingly confronts the herd’s struggle stick. But, contrary to her claim, Holmes had point during the crumbling of her fantasy for life and the devastation triggered by the an immense secret: Despite raising Theranos world she did not grasp reality. Slightly over- arid savannah. to a $9 billion valuation, the technological long at 2 hours, The Inventor still awaits a Interwoven with the story of Athena’s ability to achieve her ambition never existed. coda: Holmes has been indicted on federal family are fascinating vignettes about the Directed by Alex Gibney, The Inventor charges of defrauding investors, doctors, and biology of other animals that live at “toe- tells this now well-known story, emphasiz- patients. She faces up to 20 years in prison. nail level” to the elephants. Dung beetles ing Holmes’s embrace of a “fake it till you battle for the elephant-processed remains of make it” ethos and her ability to get power- The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, the Kingdom’s plant life and inspire some ful, but nonmedical, establishment figures Alex Gibney, director, Jigsaw Productions, whimsical fight scenes. Meanwhile, seeds to believe in her unquestioningly. Holmes’s 2018, 119 minutes. lodged in other dung piles germinate and

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matriarch, an elephant Downloaded from family embarks on a harrowing journey in The Elephant Queen.

produce food for turtles; everything is in- confrontations with police are mentally ill. tal illness. Bedlam makes clear that change http://science.sciencemag.org/ terconnected. The Elephant Queen is not The causes explored in the film range from is long overdue for a nation neglecting its explicitly a conservation film, but it con- the shuttering of asylums beginning in the most vulnerable citizens. veys an unmistakable message that all spe- 1950s (which led to an order of magnitude cies thrive in collaboration, and disruption fewer inpatient beds) to the Reagan admin- Bedlam, Kenneth Paul Rosenberg, director, of this balance could have catastrophic ef- istration’s defunding of community health Upper East Films, 2019, 84 minutes. fects on local ecosystems. efforts to underfunding of brain research The Elephant Queen feels unique among and a failure on the part of the pharmaceu- nature documentaries for its extraordi- tical industry to develop better therapeu- nary, intimate footage of Athena’s family tics. We can debate the primacy of these Sea of Shadows

3 and impossibly close-up shots of smaller causes, but the misery and chaos generated Reviewed by Paul L. Koch on March 21, 2019 animals on the move. Cinematographer in their wake are undeniable. Mark Deeble, who codirected with Victo- Bedlam is most powerful in its depiction The vaquita, a tiny porpoise of Disneyesque ria Stone, captured some of the film’s most of the suffering of people left adrift by our cuteness, is hurtling toward extinction; spectacular scenes from an underground system of care. We meet them at their sick- fewer than 15 individuals remain in Mexi- box, creating rare perspectives at and be- est, in the Los Angeles County–University of co’s Sea of Cortez. Sea of Shadows, a new low eye level of the animals. Together, Southern California psychiatric emergency documentary by director Richard Ladkani Stone and Deeble craft a richly textured room, then follow their lives for several (The Ivory Game), hammers home how insider’s view of elephant family dynam- years. Their outcomes vary in relation to greed drives this catastrophe. ics—and the activity that surrounds it— the social networks that support them. The The Chinese mafia and Mexican drug car- that is infused with personality, emotion, film also tells the story of Rosenberg’s sis- tels make millions shipping the swim blad- and empathy. ter Merle, who suffered from schizophrenia. ders of the endangered totoaba fish to Asia, Her illness motivated him to become a psy- where they are valued for their purported The Elephant Queen, Victoria Stone, Mark Dee- chiatrist and a filmmaker. medicinal properties. Local fishermen, in- ble, directors, Apple, 2018, 96 minutes. Shame is a powerful part of Bedlam’s creasingly impoverished by restrictions story. It prevents some families from seek- made to save marine life in the Sea of Cor- ing the help they need. Fear is another tez and then ensnared by loans from cartels, driver. Monte, a young African-American have become totoaba poachers, crisscross- Bedlam man, mourns that people view him as a ing the ocean with gill nets that kill huge Reviewed by Paul L. Koch3 monster. Like many people with mental ill- numbers of creatures as collateral damage, ness, he cycles in and out of jail for rela- including the vaquita. The public health statistics presented in tively petty crimes. His loving sister Patrisse Sea of Shadows highlights the people Bedlam, the new film by director Kenneth laments that communities haven’t risen up trying to stop this slaughter: journalists Paul Rosenberg, are horrifying: 350,000 in outrage over the treatment of people with who spotlight the cartels and pressure the people with mental illness sleep on U.S. mental illness and sparks a social move- Mexican government for action, undercover streets each night, the nation’s three larg- ment demanding better health care and a agents working to unravel and expose the est prisons are its three largest psychiat- halt to the use of jails and prisons as our criminal syndicate, scientists trying to cor-

ric facilities, and half the people killed in society’s main treatment centers for men- ral the last vaquitas and bring them into safe INSTITUTE SUNDANCE OF DEEBLE/COURTESY JANNA PHOTO:

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harbor, and the gutsy crew of the Sea Shep- and saving his community from starvation. For the billions of people around the herd who track poachers with drones and Filmed on location in Malawi, Ejiofor’s film world who watched as the event unfolded, pull their nets from the sea—all of whom brings to life the country’s landscape and and the nearly 1 million people who parked face daunting odds, great dangers, and culture, tenderly portrays the tension and their cars, campers, and tents across the heartbreaking setbacks. As the film unfolds, love that define William and his father’s bay from Cape Canaveral, the Moon launch their work sparks civil unrest among the relationship, and illuminates the process was a fascinating and unifying event, pos- fishing community but also spurs the arrest of invention. sibly the last time that science and technol- of a murderous cartel head and the first se- Bring your family and your lab to this ogy so captivated the hearts and minds of rious disruption of the totoaba supply chain film, the winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Foun- the public. in China. dation Feature Film Prize, to find out how Revisiting the event 50 years later, the This war continues—the Sea Shepherd one person—armed with scientific knowl- film underscores the audacity of the en- was attacked with fire bombs in January of edge, determination, ingenuity, and a pas- deavor: There was no guarantee that the this year—and the stakes are high not only sion for tinkering—can create solutions that mission could even begin successfully, for the vaquita but also for the communities transform a community. much less safely return the astronauts to that have depended on the sea for centuries. Earth. (Unmentioned in the documentary Sea of Shadows is a thrilling crime story, a The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, Chiwetel is the speech we now know had been pre- hauntingly beautiful paean to the Sea of Cor- Ejiofor, director, Netfl ix, 2018, 113 minutes. pared for President Nixon to deliver if the tez, and an urgent call for international law mission ended in catastrophe.) We see en- enforcement action to end its destruction. gineers making calculations with pencil and paper to adjust the trajectory of the Downloaded from Sea of Shadows, Richard Ladkani, director, rocket “on the fly,” wait with Mission Con- Terra Mater Factual Studios, 2018, 105 minutes. trol for communications with the capsule to resume as it rounds the dark side of the Moon, and feel the unexpected texture of the lunar surface as Neil Armstrong takes The Boy Who that “small step.” Reliving this adventure through the sights and sounds recorded http://science.sciencemag.org/ Harnessed the Wind as it happened is an experience that will Reviewed by Gabrielle Kardon4 hopefully bring the excitement of space ex- ploration to a new generation. Most of us take electricity and running water for granted, but in rural Malawi, Apollo 11, Todd Douglas Miller, director, NEON, electricity is still a rarity, and water often 2018, 93 minutes. comes from buckets hauled by hand out of wells. The new film The Boy Who Har- nessed the Wind, directed by Chiwetel Ejio-

Moonlight Sonata for, is inspired by the true story of William on March 21, 2019 Kamkwamba’s remarkable ingenuity and Reviewed by DDW Cornelison5 resourcefulness, which brought electricity A teen’s engineering ingenuity saves the day in The Boy and irrigation to his village. Who Harnessed the Wind. Director Irene Taylor Brodsky’s award- In 2001, Malawi was plagued by periods winning 2007 documentary Hear and Now of drought and flooding that led to a poor told the story of her deaf parents’ deci- maize harvest, the country’s major crop, sion to get cochlear implants late in life. and widespread famine. Kamkwamba was Apollo 11 Her new film, Moonlight Sonata, contrasts 14 years old, and families in his village, Reviewed by DDW Cornelison5 her father’s lifelong experience of deafness Wimbe—including his own—were starving. with that of her son Jonas. Kamkwamba had always been a tinkerer. Apollo 11 distills a trove of recently discov- Deaf since birth, Brodsky’s father, Paul Drawing inspiration from some textbooks ered archival materials to provide an un- Taylor, was taught to speak by mimicking that he discovered in the small library of precedented view of the first-ever attempt sounds he sensed by touching a speaker’s his former school (which he could no longer to send humans to the Moon and bring throat. As a young man, a key victory was afford to attend), he dreamt of building a them back again. More than 300 reels of securing a driver’s license—a source of in- wind turbine to power a pump that would large-format film were converted by using dependence that had not been permitted generate a stable supply of water to irrigate a one-of-a-kind digital scanner, and ~11,000 for deaf people only shortly before and with the village’s crops. Amid political instabil- hours of audiotape, featuring the audio feed which Taylor’s family is forced to reckon ity, increasingly dire circumstances, and of more than 60 individuals, were scanned in the film. He went on to invent the TTY his father’s skepticism, Kamkwamba builds and processed. The choice to exclude any machine, a device that allows deaf people a small prototype that is able to power a narration or contemporary voiceovers may to communicate in real time with people at radio. Gradually, he scrounges batteries, make you forget that it’s a documentary; a distance. When Paul got his cochlear im- PVC pipe, bicycle parts, a tractor fan, and I found myself leaning forward anxiously plants in his 60s, the technology didn’t fully various other bits from the local scrapyard. when command module pilot Michael Col- restore his hearing because his neural con- With help from his friends and eventually lins had to make a last-minute change to nections were habituated to silence. his father, Kamkwamba builds a wind tur- the lunar landing site and as “Buzz” Aldrin Brodsky’s son Jonas, who lost his hear- bine that pumps well water to the surface, precisely docked the lander back with the ing as a baby, has had a dramatically differ-

PHOTO: ILZE KITSHOFF/COURTESY OF SUNDANCE INSTITUTE SUNDANCE OF ILZE KITSHOFF/COURTESY PHOTO: providing consistent irrigation to the fields capsule for the trip home. ent experience. Jonas had cochlear implant

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Published by AAAS INSIGHTS | BOOKS surgery as a young child, and it was so suc- multaneously nurturing and threatening. cessful that it can be hard to remember that The film opens on Mother popping an em- Ask Dr. Ruth he is deaf. As anyone who has ever had to bryo pod into an artificial womb with the Reviewed by Gabrielle Kardon4 get tech support from a teenager will relate ease of brewing a cup of hotel-room coffee. to, the technology that is nearly magical to Twenty-four hours later, a baby girl is born. “Size does not matter” is the famous sex his grandparents is no big deal to Jonas. A “Daughter” (Clara Rugaard) becomes the advice uttered by the legendary therapist scene in which they are trying to give him ultimate high-achieving young adult: She’s Ruth Westheimer, known to the world as advice on how to live as a deaf person while a talented dancer, mechanic, and surgeon “Dr. Ruth.” But there is more to the diminu- he plays with his phone and nods his head— who watches Johnny Carson reruns in her tive, upbeat therapist with the thick Ger- an act intended to communicate that he is downtime. Mother challenges her with man accent than provocative catchphrases. listening that instead makes them feel as ethical dilemmas in preparation for an im- Through skillful interweaving of interviews, though he is ignoring them—highlights this portant exam, which in turn raises critical archival footage, and watercolor animations, generational difference. questions about Mother’s own moral code. Ryan White’s new documentary reveals her As Jonas struggles to learn Beethoven’s Most importantly, what does it mean to be colorful life. Moonlight Sonata—a piece written while the good? The droid seems to value human life Westheimer was born in 1928 in Ger- composer himself was losing his hearing— above all else, but its principles sometimes many as Karola Ruth Siegel. Her parents his grandfather also faces a new challenge. conflict with the morality of the species it’s were killed in the Holocaust but saved The movie paints a beautiful and moving trying to “improve,” and the consequences their daughter by sending her via kinder- picture of a family taking what comes in life, can be abhorrent by human standards. transport to Switzerland, where she was together, with love and grace. Tension disrupts Daughter’s predictable raised in an orphanage. After the war, she Downloaded from existence when her budding curiosity about joined a kibbutz in Palestine, worked as Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in Three Movements, the world beyond the facility collides with a sharpshooter for a Jewish paramilitary Irene Taylor Brodsky, director, Vermilion Films, an outsider’s (Hilary Swank) cry for help. organization, earned a degree at the Sor- 2019, 90 minutes. The outsider’s take on the extinction event bonne in Paris, and eventually landed in is decidedly different from Mother’s, and New York City. There, her passion for help- détente turns to chaos as Daughter must ing people with family, relationship, and reconcile her allegiance to Mother with sev- sexual issues blossomed. http://science.sciencemag.org/ I Am Mother eral disturbing discoveries. As part of her work for Planned Par- Reviewed by Michael D. Shapiro2 Director Grant Sputore and screen- enthood in East Harlem, she interviewed writer Michael Lloyd Green sprinkle hints women about their contraceptive and abor- I Am Mother envisions a near future in throughout the film that foreshadow sev- tion history, and this work ultimately be- which an intelligent machine controls the eral plot twists. With a compelling and came the basis for her doctoral studies at fate of the human species after a major ex- creative story, and superb performances by Columbia University. Realizing that she had tinction event. The droid “Mother” presides the tiny cast, I Am Mother is worth a second a hard time answering the myriad ques- over a repopulation facility housing 63,000 viewing with a pause button to unlock the tions about sexuality that she encountered human embryos in a state of arrested de- clutch of Easter eggs. during her research, she chose to pursue velopment. It has a soothing female voice her postdoctoral studies with Helen Singer on March 21, 2019 (Rose Byrne), but its mechanical facial I Am Mother, Grant Sputore, director, Kaplan, a noted sex therapist at New York expressions and body language can be si- The Penguin Empire, 2018, 114 minutes. Medical College. Westheimer’s life changed dramatically in 1981 when she started hosting a late- night call-in show about sex at a local radio station. Sexually Speaking was a pioneering program in which she discussed questions about sex openly, compassionately, and knowledgeably. The show was an immedi- ate success that led to appearances on late- night talk shows, book deals, and the birth of the iconic “Dr. Ruth.” Watch this film not only to learn more about Westheimer’s remarkable life on the forefront of the sexual revolution but also to be uplifted by her tireless advocacy for human connections and love.

Ask Dr. Ruth, Ryan White, director, Delirio Films, 2018, 100 minutes.

A young woman raised by a robot realizes that all is not what it seems when an outsider arrives in I Am Mother. 10.1126/science.aax1668

1Department of Cell, Developmental, and Regenerative Biology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA. Email: [email protected]. 2School of Biological Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA. Email: [email protected]. 3Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA. Email: [email protected]. 4Department of Human Genetics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA. Email: [email protected]. 5Division of Biological Sciences and Christopher S. Bond

Life Sciences Center, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA. Email: [email protected] INSTITUTE SUNDANCE OF IAN ROUTLEDGE/COURTESY PHOTO:

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