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
Computing and artificial intelligence
A future in which ‘artificial scientists’ make discoveries may not be far away
9 minutes
video
History
Hags, seductresses, feminist icons – how gender dynamics manifest in witches
13 minutes
video
Earth science and climate
Images carved into film form a haunting elegy for a disappearing slice of Earth
3 minutes
video
Biology
Butterflies become unrecognisable landscapes when viewed under electron microscopes
4 minutes
video
War and peace
Two Ukrainian boys’ summer unfolds just miles from the frontlines
22 minutes
video
Nature and landscape
California’s landscapes provide endless inspiration for a woodcut printmaker
10 minutes
video
Love and friendship
Never marry a man you love too much, and other views on romance in Sierra Leone
5 minutes
video
Engineering
Can monumental ‘ice stupas’ help remote Himalayan villages survive?
15 minutes
video
History of technology
Curious singles and tech sceptics – what ‘computer dating’ looked like in 1966
6 minutes