Some burning questions: How do you build a machine to test Einstein's Relativity Theory? Will you need a screwdriver? What does an astrophysicist do exactly on any given Tuesday while searching the cosmos?
In 1985, a clueless but educable filmmaker pursues these questions, skips 3 decades, then picks the story up again, 39 years later. One of the most important discoveries in physics then, is told as it happens.
COSMIC CODA is about the in-between moments of scientific discovery - how it feels going to work each day on a machine that tests both the limits of our universe
and our ability to comprehend this mind boggling goal.
Much has changed in the world of astrophysics: more remarkably, much has not. Scientists turn out to be human beings after all!
Featuring Music By ROOMFUL OF TEETH
IT'S ABOUT TIME
[It's a way to} 'take pleasure in the constancy of human nature set against radically shifting circumstances'
'To arouse audiences into an acceptance of shared humanity across an immensity of time' Ian McEwan
ABOUT THE FILMMAKER
MJ DOHERTY
Back in 1985, inspired by her mentor and teacher, the late great Ricky Leacock, MJ Doherty filmed her astrophysicists solo. (MJ was one of Ricky's last grad students.) She began the project without an agenda or message; this made it easier for her film subjects to be who they are, instead of who she wanted them to be.
And so for the contemporary footage she filmed the exact same way, to provide coherence across the massive time gap. You can find out more about MJ HERE.