In a world where scientific understanding is more crucial than ever, the collaboration between science and documentary filmmaking plays a vital role. By translating complex research into compelling visual narratives, documentaries make science accessible, relatable, and inspiring. This fusion of rigorous inquiry and creative storytelling is essential for fostering a more informed and critically aware society.
With the aim of disseminating the research carried out by the Department of Geosciences, as well as offering both a technical and creative exercise for students of the M.A. in Film Studies, the first semester of this academic year saw the launch of a new study-unit ATS5104: Science Frames: Popularising Scientific Research through Film. This initiative marks an important step at the University of Malta towards bridging two fields that are often perceived as separate: scientific research and practice, and research and practice in the humanities.
The study-unit was co-ordinated by Dr Fabrizio Foni, who lectures within the Film Studies’ programme, and the students were guided throughout the creative process by Justin Farrugia, co-founder of Sharp Shoot Media, one of Malta’s leading audiovisual production companies, and an alumnus of the same M.A. in Film Studies.
The collaboration between the Faculty of Science’s Department of Geosciences, led by Prof. Sebastiano D’Amico, and the Faculty of Arts’ M.A. in Film Studies programme, designed and co-ordinated by Prof. Gloria Lauri-Lucente and sponsored by the Malta Film Commission, has resulted in the production of two documentaries under the collective title “Unearthing Secrets”.
The two documentaries bring to life, through sound and image, the research carried out by Prof. D’Amico and Dr Emanuele Colica at the Msida Bastion Cemetery and the Chapel of Aragon within St John’s Co-Cathedral. They also provide viewers with a historical context for these two remarkable and, each in their own way, unique sites. Among the various interviewees featured are Adriana Alescio, curator of the extraordinary Co-Cathedral, and Paolo Ferrelli, warden of the Msida Bastion Cemetery, the only surviving British-built monumental cemetery from the early 19th century in Malta.
The two documentaries, with respective runtimes of approximately eighteen and twelve minutes, will premiere on 12 May at 18:00 at the Aula Magna, Valletta Campus. Admission is free, and the screening will be followed by a reception.
