7. Global Science Film Festival in Bern

The Global Science Film Festival brings together contemporary world events, artistic storytelling and scientific inquiry on the cinema screen. The festival shows current international films of various genres that combine social developments with current scientific debates. Following the film screenings, the topics and narrative forms are explored in-depth, through moderated discussions between the audience, filmmakers and researchers.

This year, the festival is featuring a selection of international films from various genres that offer diverse and critical perspectives on pressing social, political, and ecological issues in our globalized world. The festival will cover a range of topics, including the measurability of elementary particles, the extraction of metallic raw materials and wolf populations. Additionally, we will showcase stories from often overlooked areas of science, addressing themes such as conspiracy theories, queer bodies, asbestos workers, and kidney stones. 

Each film will be followed by a moderated discussion with the filmmakers, researchers and the audience.

The festival, first held in Zurich in 2017, and soon afterwards established in Bern, places a special focus on unconventional cinematic narrative techniques. Current film productions offer diverse and critical perspectives on the pressing social, political and ecological issues of a globalized world. This year, alongside topics such as the measurability of elementary particles, the extraction of metallic raw materials and wolf populations, the festival also showcases stories from overlooked areas of science, including conspiracy theories, queer bodies, asbestos workers and kidney stones. Each film is followed by a discussion with the filmmakers and scientists, while the program also includes in-depth workshops and dedicated sessions for schoolchildren.

Susan Thieme, Professor of Critical Sustainability Research, and Mirko Winkel, artist and coordinator of the mLAB at the University of Bern's Institute of Geography, oversee the program in Bern, while biologist and filmmaker Samer Angelone leads the festival’s additional editions across Switzerland.