Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
The Voyager spacecrafts were launched by the United States in 1977 to explore our Solar System’s gas giants – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – and then interstellar space, where they’re still gathering valuable information. In addition to their mission of exploration, they’re also on a mission of communication: each craft is equipped with a ‘golden record’ featuring sounds and images of life on Earth, and information about our place in the cosmos, intended as a message to any extraterrestrial beings that might find them. Combining animation, archival photographs, videos, images, sounds and a sweeping, operatic score, Santiago Menghini’s short film Voyagers is a stunning tribute to one of humanity’s most ambitious – and idealistic – projects.
Director: Santiago Menghini
Website: Nemesis Films
video
Architecture
A 3D rendering of the Colosseum captures its architectural genius and symbolic power
17 minutes
video
Human rights and justice
Surreal, dazzling visuals form an Iranian expat’s tribute to defiance back home
10 minutes
video
Language and linguistics
Do button-pushing dogs have something new to say about language?
9 minutes
video
Art
When East met West in the images of an overlooked, original photographer
9 minutes
video
History of science
Ideas ‘of pure genius’ – how astronomers have measured the Universe across history
29 minutes
video
Values and beliefs
Why a single tree, uprooted in a typhoon, means so much to one man in Hanoi
7 minutes
video
Meaning and the good life
Why Orwell urged his readers to celebrate the spring, cynics be damned
11 minutes
video
Making
On the Norwegian coast, a tree is transformed into a boat the old-fashioned way
6 minutes
video
Animals and humans
One man’s quest to save an orphaned squirrel, as narrated by David Attenborough
14 minutes