Next month, the Science Museum will host its first ever science-fiction film festival, making full use of its huge IMAX cinema for some exclusive screenings.
Playing on one of the largest IMAX screens in the country will be Interstellar, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Tenet in IMAX 70mm and Blade Runner: The Final Cut will be presented for the first time in its IMAX edition in Europe. Alongside these will be WALL-E, Sunshine, The X-Files, Attack the Block and more with a programme of talks to accompany the screenings.
Tickets go on general sale on Friday (3rd Feb) at 10am.
(Tip, when booking tickets, make a note of the time of the screening before you click, as you need to also book a separate museum ticket to be able to get into the museum before the film)
IMAX The Ronson Theatre at the Science Museum (c) Science Museum Group
Interstellar (12A) IMAX 70mm & Q&A
Wednesday 8 March, 6:45pm
Ticketed: Adult, £19.50; Child, £15.50
This opening screening of the Science Fiction Film Festival will feature a special prerecorded introduction from Christopher Nolan. Paul Franklin, visual effects supervisor for Interstellar and Inception will take part in a live in-person Q&A with Samira Ahmed, journalist and broadcaster.
2001: A Space Odyssey (U) IMAX 70mm + Q&A
Ticketed: Adult, £19.50; Child, £15.50
To open this screening, Samira Ahmed will chair a discussion on the reality and depiction of life in space with Francine Stock, journalist, film critic and former presenter of BBC Radio 4’s The Film Programme, and, on live video link, Nicole Stott, co-founder of the Space for Art Foundation, and veteran NASA astronaut.
Tenet (12) IMAX 70mm + Q&A
Friday 10th March, 7:30pm
Ticketed: Adult, £19.50; Child, £15.50
Christopher Nolan introduces Tenet (2020) in a piece specially recorded for the Science Museum, special guest speakers will join to discuss the making of – and science behind – this visual spectacular.
Nolan used a mixture of IMAX and 70mm film to bring the story to the screen, and the screening will be presented in its full IMAX 70mm film format.
Spider-Man: Into the spiderverse (PG) IMAX 2D + Q&A
Saturday 11th March, 11am
Ticketed: Adult, £14.50; Child, £11.50
Shameik Moore, singer, rapper and voice of Miles, and Peter Ramsey, screenwriter, producer, and the Academy Award-winning director, will introduce the screening in an exclusively pre-recorded piece. There will be live introductions with Fran Scott, science demonstration developer and presenter on CBBC’s Absolute Genius with Dick and Dom, and the Science Museum’s Alexandros Fragkos.
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (PG) + Q&A
Saturday 11th March, 2:25pm
Ticketed: Adult, £16.50; Child, £12.50
The screening will be followed by a virtual talk about real-life research into time travel. Alex Winter, filmmaker, actor and the eponymous Bill, and Ed Solomon, filmmaker, screenwriter (Men in Black; Now You See Me) and co-creator of the trilogy will speak with Dr Spiros Michalakis, quantum physicist and science advisor for Bill & Ted: Face the Music and Professor Fay Dowker, Professor of theoretical physics at Imperial College London.
Attack the Block (15) + Q&A
Saturday 11th March, 5:15pm
Ticketed: Adult, £16.50; Child, £12.50
The screening will be introduced by a talk on the real-life search for aliens in collaboration with the SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute. Jill Tarter, astronomer and co-founder of the SETI Institute will appear, via live video link, followed by an in-person Q&A with Joe Cornish, BAFTA Award-nominated comedian, screenwriter and director (Attack the Block; Lockwood & Co.: Ant-Man, co-writer).
Sunshine (15) + Q&A
Saturday 11th March, 8:15pm
Ticketed: Adult, £16.50; Child, £12.50
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Academy Award-winning director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire; Trainspotting; Sunshine); Professor Brian Cox, physicist, broadcaster and science advisor on Sunshine; and Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, astrophysicist, author and presenter of BBC’s The Sky at Night.
Wall-E (U) + Q&A
Sunday 12th March, 7:15pm
Ticketed: Adult, £14.50; Child, £11.50
The screening will be followed by an exclusively pre-recorded conversation with Danielle Feinberg, visual effects supervisor and Director of Photography for Lighting at Pixar Animation Studios who worked on Brave, Coco and WALL-E, with Alexandros Fragkos, Production Coordinator at the Science Museum, about effects wizardry.
The X-Files: 30th anniversary screening (15) + Q&A
Sunday 12th March, 7:15pm
Ticketed: Adult, £14.50; Child, £11.50
To mark its anniversary, meet Mulder and Scully in Pilot (1993), the very first episode of The X-Files, on the IMAX screen.
The BAFTA and Emmy Award-nominated creator, executive producer and writer of The X-Files, Chris Carter and Professor Anne Simon, author, Professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics at the University of Maryland and science advisor on the show, will join for a Q&A via live video link.
Alien (15) + Panel discussion
Sunday 12th March, 7:15pm
Ticketed: Adult, £16.50; Child, £12.50
After the screening, Veronica Cartwright, award-winning actress who stars in Alien, will join via live video link for a panel discussion chaired by Edwina Dunn OBE, Deputy Chair of the Government Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation and founder of The Female Lead campaign, with Corrina Antrobus, film critic and founder of the Bechdel Test Fest; and Simran Hans, culture writer and critic. The event is presented with The Female Lead.
Blade Runner: The Final Cut (12A) IMAX Edition + Q&A
Sunday 12 March, 7:15pm
Ticketed: Adult, £19.50; Child, £15.50
Showing in full IMAX format for the first time in Europe, on one of the biggest screens in the country, dystopian classic Blade Runner (1982), directed by the legendary Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, will close the Science Fiction Film Festival.
The screening will feature a Q&A with producer and writer Ivor Powell, whose credits include Blade Runner, Alien and Finch, and a talk by robotics lecturer Thomas-George Thuruthel.
Talks Programme
Panel discussion: Building Scj-Fi worlds
Saturday 11th March, 2pm
Ever wondered how the great minds of Sci-Fi create futuristic worlds, alien planets and galaxies, far, far away? And how budding writers can take steps into world-building?
Chaired by Professor Jennifer Rohn, Research Group Leader at University College London, journalist and founder of LabLit.com, the panel is made up of Ben Aaronovitch, bestselling author and screenwriter for Doctor Who; Professor Giovanna Tinetti, astrophysicist and Director of the UCL Centre for Space Exo-chemistry Data; and Paul Franklin, Academy Award-winning visual effects supervisor and founder of visual effects company, DNEG.
Professor Lucie Green: The science of sunshine
Saturday 11th March, 3.50pm
Ahead of Saturday night’s screening of Danny Boyle’s Sunshine, solar physicist Lucie Green explores how the Sun works and how we might restart a dying star.
Professor Lucie Green’s acclaimed book 15 Million Degrees: A Journey to Centre of the Sun reveals the latest solar research and explains how a solar storm could threaten everything we know. She’ll be joined in conversation by science journalist and broadcaster Deborah Cohen to shed light on her findings and the science involved in creating Sunshine.
Panel discussion: How to imagine an alien
Sunday 12 March, 12:45pm
In the vastness of space, many scientists are convinced that we must not be alone in the universe. But what might aliens look like, and how do artists bring them to life in science fiction?
Qasa Alom, investigative journalist at the BBC, chairs a panel that sheds light on how extraterrestrials may look and behave, with speakers Dr Arik Kershenbaum, Lecturer for the Department of Zoology at University of Cambridge; Dr Bettina Beinhoff, Senior Lecturer of Applied Linguistics and English Language at Anglia Ruskin University; and Simon Green, Lead Creature Artist.
Panel discussion: How to build an Android
Sunday 12th March, 2:40pm
Ahead of the festival’s closing night screening of Blade Runner: The Final Cut IMAX Edition, a panel explores whether we might one day build advanced humans, and how.
Dr Philip Ball, science writer and author, will chair the discussion between Dr Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, an artist with work exhibited at MoMA New York and the Royal Academy; Professor Jason Chin, Programme Leader at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology; Professor Maja Pantic, Professor of Affective and Behavioral Computing, and the Al Scientific Research Lead in Facebook London; and Dr Thomas-George Thuruthel, Lecturer in Robotics and Al at University College London.
