329 – Contact (1997)

spacetime coordinates: 1990s New Mexico // Florida //  Puerto Rico // Washington, D.C. // Wisconsin // Hokkaido

Contact is a 1997 American science fiction drama film directed by Robert Zemeckis. It is a film adaptation of Carl Sagan‘s 1985 novel of the same name; Sagan and his wife Ann Druyan wrote the story outline for the film.

Jodie Foster portrays the film’s protagonist, Dr. Eleanor “Ellie” Arroway, a SETI scientist who finds strong evidence of extraterrestrial life and is chosen to make first contact.

imdb        wiki

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What Happens If China Makes First Contact?

As America has turned away from searching for extraterrestrial intelligence, China has built the world’s largest radio dish for precisely that purpose. (read more)

“No civilization should ever announce its presence to the cosmos. Any other civilization that learns of its existence will perceive it as a threat to expand—as all civilizations do, eliminating their competitors until they encounter one with superior technology and are themselves eliminated. This grim cosmic outlook is called “dark-forest theory,” because it conceives of every civilization in the universe as a hunter hiding in a moonless woodland, listening for the first rustlings of a rival.”

304 – Oblivion (2013)

spacetime coordinates: 2077 New York CityOblivion is a 2013 American post-apocalyptic science fiction film based on Joseph Kosinski‘s unpublished Radical Publishing graphic novel of the same name. The film was co-produced and directed by Kosinski.  It stars Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Andrea Riseborough, and Olga Kurylenko.    According to Kosinski, Oblivion pays homage to science fiction films of the 1970s.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1483013/

0273 – Cargo (2009)

spacetime coordinates:  2267 – 2270 aboard cargo ship Kassandra

Cargo is a 2009 science fiction film, the first from Swiss production and the first major feature film by Ivan Engler.

After the earth has become uninhabitable due to an ecological collapse, the remaining people live on overcrowded space stations in Earth’s orbit. The young doctor Laura Portmann (Anna Katharina Schwabroh) is one of them. She hopes for a better future alongside her sister on the distant planet Rhea, but to get there, she needs money. She signs up with Kuiper Enterprises for a job on the decrepit cargo ship Kassandra, heading for an eight-year flight to unmanned Station #42 and back.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381940/

267 – Pandorum (2009)

Pandorum is a German-British 2009 science fiction horror film, with elements of Lovecraftian horror, and survival adventure. The film was directed by Christian Alvart and produced by Robert Kulzer, Jeremy Bolt and Paul W.S. Anderson.

In 2174, the human population has exceeded the carrying capacity of Earth, leading humanity to build a huge interstellar ark named Elysium. It carries 60,000 people on a 123-year trip to colonize an Earth-like planet named Tanis.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1188729/

0256 – The 100 (TV Series 2014– )

The 100 (pronounced The Hundred ) is an American post-apocalyptic science fiction/ teen drama television series that premiered on March 19, 2014, on The CW. The series, developed by Jason Rothenberg, is loosely based on the 2013 book of the same name, the first in a series by Kass Morgan.

The series follows a group of post apocalypse survivors, representing many age groups: Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor), Bellamy Blake (Bob Morley), Octavia Blake (Marie Avgeropoulos), Jasper Jordan (Devon Bostick), Monty Green (Christopher Larkin), Raven Reyes (Lindsey Morgan), Finn Collins (Thomas McDonell), John Murphy (Richard Harmon), and Wells Jaha (Eli Goree) as they are among the first people from a space habitat, “The Ark”, to return to Earth 97 years after after a devastating nuclear apocalypse; the series also focuses on Dr. Abby Griffin (Paige Turco), Clarke’s mother; Marcus Kane (Henry Ian Cusick), a council member on the Ark; and Thelonious Jaha (Isaiah Washington), the Chancellor of the Ark and Wells’ father.

In March 2016, The 100 was renewed for a fourth season of 13 episodes, which premiered on February 1, 2017. In March 2017, The CW renewed the series for a fifth season.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2661044/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_100_(TV_series)

152 – The Lost City of Z (2016)

spacetime coordinates: Ireland 1905 > England 1924  //  uncharted eastern Bolivia 1906, uncharted Amazonia 1912, 1925 // Battle of the Somme, France 1916

The Lost City of Z is a 2016 American biographical adventure drama film written and directed by James Gray, based on the 2009 book of the same name by David Grann. It describes real events surrounding British explorer Percy Fawcett who was sent to Bolivia and later made several attempts to find an ancient lost city in the Amazon and disappeared in 1925 along with his son on an expedition.

imdb.com     wikipedia

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On 21 March 2004, the British newspaper The Observer reported that television director Misha Williams, who had studied Fawcett’s private papers, believed that Fawcett had not intended to return to Britain but rather meant to found a commune in the jungle based on theosophical principles and the worship of his son Jack.  –  (wikipedia)

James Gray’s tremendous The Lost City Of Z finds meaning in the unknown: “an operatic drama, an adventure saga, an anti-colonialist critique, a veiled artistic self-portrait, and, yes, even a revisionist grail legend. “

0091 – In the Realms of the Unreal (2004)

spacetime coordinates: 1892–1973 Chicago, Illinois, U.S. 

In the Realms of the Unreal is a 2004 documentary film directed by Jessica Yu about American outsider artist Henry Darger.

An obscure janitor during his life, Darger is known for the posthumous discovery of his elaborate 15,145-page fantasy manuscript entitled The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, along with several hundred watercolor paintings and other drawings illustrating the story.

The film’s style is atypical of a documentary. Because there are only three known photographs of Darger, and because of his reclusive lifestyle, the film is mostly a narrated biographical account, accompanied by animated versions of events from his magnum opus, which is also surveyed in detail. Interviews with his few neighbors and other acquaintances are included.

In the last entry in his diary, he wrote: “January 1, 1971. I had a very poor nothing like Christmas. Never had a good Christmas all my life, nor a good new year, and now… I am very bitter but fortunately not revengeful, though I feel should be how I am…”

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imdb