Movies That Matter
A film series curated and presented in a collaborative partnership with the Caltech Center for Inclusion and Diversity, Caltech Sustainability, and the student-led Caltech Y. The films in this series address current concerns in various realms of science as well as important matters of social justice.
Upcoming Events
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Past Screenings
L.A. Real: A Theatrical Reel
Tuesday, May 14, 2024
Pondering its complicated layers, a Latina dives deep into her California ancestral history and how she should embrace it on a personal, political and cultural level. How can she connect to a past that has been nearly lost in time and move forward with a deeper sense of her identity?
Written and directed by Theresa Chavez, and with original video, music, painting, and vintage photography, L.A. Real peels away L.A.'s fantasy past to find a deeper, visceral connection for the 8th generation Southern California Latina.
A Q&A with the playwright/director followed the screening.
Chasing Ice
Thursday, April 25, 2024
Chasing Ice an Academy Award-nominated documentary film about the shrinking glaciers in Iceland, Greenland, and Alaska. Beautifully filmed, the film follows James Balog, a National Geographic photographer, as he fights the elements to capture time-lapsed footage of the accelerating changes in the ice-pack that will result in ever higher sea levels in the coming years.
A conversation with Caltech and JPL researchers followed the screening.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Wednesday, October 11, 2023
Henrietta Lacks was a Black woman whose cells were used to create the first immortal human cell line. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, follows Lacks's daughter, Deborah (played by Oprah Winfrey), in a search to learn about the mother she never knew and how the unauthorized harvesting of Lacks's cancerous cells in 1951 led to medical breakthroughs.
A conversation focusing on the ethical issues raised by the film followed the screening with Caltech professor Michael Alvarez, founding co-director of the new Caltech Center for Science, Society, and Public Policy, and postdoctoral scholar Ozan Gurcan.
Techne: Evidence in the Anthropocene
Thursday, August 17, 2023
Directed by Daniel R. Small and produced in partnership with the Art + Technology Lab at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Techne telescopes between galactic and planetary evidence presented by scientists and artist-investigators who contemplate both deep time and the fate of the human species.
A panel discussion followed the screening featuring Small; scientist Jonathan Jiang of JPL, which Caltech manages for NASA; Ann Druyan, creative director of the Golden Record and collaborator and wife of Carl Sagan; and moderator Daniel Oberhaus, author of the book Extraterrestrial Languages.
Chasing Coral
Tuesday, July 25, 2023
This Sundance award-winning film from Exposure Labs captures footage of the most severe oceanic bleaching event in recorded history. Between 2014 and 2017, 75 percent of corals suffered or died from heat stress brought on by climate change. It is predicted that if nothing changes, by 2034 there will be severe bleaching events every year and by 2050, 90 percent of reefs could be lost.
A Q&A with a filmmaker from Chasing Coral followed the screening.
Who Killed Vincent Chin?
Tuesday, May 16, 2023
This 1987 documentary recounts the murder of Chinese American automotive engineer Vincent Chin and reveals information about this racially motivated hate crime and how the murderers escaped justice in the court system.
The film, which chronicles a historical moment of anti-Asian hate in the U.S., is being screened at a time when racial hate crimes are once again haunting this country. Chin lived and worked in Detroit. His murderers were angry at the success of the Japanese auto industry in the U.S. car market and killed Chin with a baseball bat. Nominated for an Academy Award, Who Killed Vincent Chin? became a landmark in Asian American filmmaking and a classic in U.S. independent cinema.
A Q&A with co-director and co-producer Renee Tajima-Peña followed the screening.
Presented as part of Caltech's recognition of Asian/American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander Month in May. The event is a collaborative partnership with Caltech Public Events, the Caltech Center for Inclusion and Diversity, and the Caltech Y.
Small Island Big Song
Tuesday, April 18, 2023
Filmed over three years on 16 island nations across the Pacific and Indian Oceans, this grassroots musical features Indigenous musicians on the frontlines of the climate crisis who have crafted songs that speak to the immediate threat of sea level rise and the consequences to their cultures if they are forced to leave their island nations for higher land.
A Q&A with filmmakers Tim Cole and BaoBao Chen followed the screening.
Manzanar Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust
Wednesday, April 20, 2022
Sitting at the foot of the majestic snow-capped Sierras, Manzanar, the WWII concentration camp, becomes the confluence for memories of Payahuunadü, the now-parched "land of flowing water." Intergenerational women from Native American, Japanese American and rancher communities come together to form an unexpected alliance to defend their land and water from Los Angeles.
A Q&A with filmmaker Ann Kaneko and Max Christman, Caltech manager of sustainability programs, followed the event in recognition of Earth Week.
Earth Day, held annually since 1970, has offered a continuing opportunity to recognize the human role in environmental protection. Caltech Sustainability hopes that collaboration with other Caltech groups with seemingly distinct missions will illustrate the interdisciplinary nature with which the world's greatest sustainability problems must be addressed. Environmental justice must be a leading theme as we look to address the climate crisis and other sustainability challenges.
100 Years From Mississippi
Friday, February 11, 2022
100 Years From Mississippi is a true story of resilience, forgiveness, memory, and hope. Mamie Lang Kirkland still remembers the night in 1915 when panic filled her home in Ellisville, Mississippi. Her family was forced to flee in darkness from a growing mob of men determined to lynch her father and his friend. Mamie's family escaped, but her father's friend, John Hartfield, did not. He suffered one of the most horrific lynchings of the era. Mamie vowed to never return to Mississippi – until now. After 100 years, Mamie's youngest child, filmmaker, Tarabu Betserai Kirkland, takes his mother back to Ellisville to tell her story, honor those who succumbed to the terror of racial violence, and give testimony to the courage and hope epitomized by many of her generation.
A Q&A followed the screening with filmmakers Tarabu Betserai Kirkland and Barry Shabaka Henley; Allen Edson, President of the NAACP, Pasadena Branch; and Caltech's Danielle L. Wiggins, assistant professor of history, Division of Humanities and Social Sciences.