Part of Sloan Science on Screen
Sloan Prize Screening and Q&A: “Ammonite”
Everyone who registers for this event will have access to stream the film within a 24-hour window. Viewing of the film is restricted geographically to the United States. The live Q&A will take place on this page, and a video recording will be posted here shortly afterward.
PROGRAM DETAILS
Film Available to Stream
Thu, Dec 17 at 5:00 pm – Fri, Dec 18 at 5:00 pm PST
Live Q&A
Fri, Dec 18 at 1:00 pm PST
Q&A
Writer/director Francis Lee, geologist Paddy Howe, and micropaleontologist Dr. Lisa White are expected for the live Q&A on December 18 at 1:00 pm PST.
Description
Ammonite is the 2020 recipient of the Sloan Science in Cinema Prize, an award that celebrates the compelling depiction of science in a narrative feature film. Presented through a partnership between SFFILM and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the prize is part of SFFILM’s Sloan Science in Cinema initiative, which enhances public understanding of science through the language of film.
In the 1840s, acclaimed self-taught palaeontologist Mary Anning works alone on the wild and brutal Southern English coastline of Lyme Regis. The days of her famed discoveries behind her, she now hunts for common fossils to sell to rich tourists to support herself and her ailing widowed mother. When one such tourist, Roderick Murchison, arrives in Lyme on the first leg of a European tour, he entrusts Mary with the care of his young wife Charlotte, who is recuperating from a personal tragedy. Mary, whose life is a daily struggle on the poverty line, cannot afford to turn him down but, proud and relentlessly passionate about her work, she clashes with her unwanted guest. They are two women from utterly different worlds. Yet despite the chasm between their social spheres and personalities, Mary and Charlotte discover they can each offer what the other has been searching for: the realization that they are not alone. It is the beginning of a passionate and all-consuming love affair that will defy all social bounds and alter the course of both lives irrevocably.
Trailer
Film Details
Language English
Year 2020
Runtime 120
Country UK
Director Francis Lee
Producer Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Fodhla Cronin O'Reilly
Writer Francis Lee
Editor Chris Wyatt
Cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine
Music Dustin O'Halloran, Volker Bertelmann
Cast Kate Winslet, Saoirse Ronan, Gemma Jones, James McArdle, Alec Secareanu, Fiona Shaw
Print Source NEON