Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
Diverse, numerous and vital to life on Earth, plankton are microscopic, mostly single-celled organisms that live in sunlit regions of watery environments. Through photosynthesis, these small lifeforms produce half of the world’s oxygen. Over the past several decades, however, the climate crisis has caused worrying disruptions in plankton populations, with their numbers decreasing in open oceans and increasing in near-shore waters, sometimes leading to harmful algal blooms.
The Dutch photographer and filmmaker Jan van IJken’s short film Planktonium uses high-definition microscopy to bring the beauty and wide variety of plankton into view. As he focuses on just one species at a time, some resemble familiar cellular forms, while others appear as if creatures born of an alien planet. Paired with an ethereal ambient composition by the Norwegian artist Jana Winderen, the film offers a stunning perspective on this hidden, essential world. For more awe-inspiring glimpses into nature from van IJken, watch Becoming and The Art of Flying.
Director: Jan van IJken
Composer: Jana Winderen
video
Technology and the self
A filmmaker finds a tactile beauty in the creation of her prosthetic leg
11 minutes
video
Knowledge
An Indigenous myth and a geological survey elicit two ways of knowing one place
4 minutes
video
Biology
Beetles take flight at 6,000 frames per second in this perspective-shifting short
9 minutes
video
War and peace
A war meteorologist’s riveting account of how the Allies averted a D-Day disaster
6 minutes
video
Physics
What does it look like to hunt for dark matter? Scenes from one frontier in the search
7 minutes
video
Technology and the self
How the magic of photography brought Victorian England closer to the spirit realm
16 minutes
video
Home
An artist endeavours to bring the Moon down to Earth in a ritual of yearning
5 minutes
video
Information and communication
An animation built from road signs is a whirlwind study of flash communication
2 minutes
video
Biology
An elegy for a dying microbe explores what we really mean by ‘death’
9 minutes