In a world where scientific understanding had become more crucial than ever, the collaboration between science and documentary filmmaking played a vital role. By translating complex research into compelling visual narratives, documentaries made science accessible, relatable, and inspiring. This fusion of rigorous inquiry and creative storytelling proved 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 that academic year saw the launch of a new study-unit, ATS5104: Science Frames: Popularising Scientific Research through Film. This initiative marked an important step at the University of Malta towards bridging two fields 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, a lecturer 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, resulted in the production of two documentaries under the collective title Unearthing Secrets.
The two documentaries brought 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 provided viewers with a historical context for these two remarkable and, each in their own way, unique sites. Among the various interviewees featured were 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.
You can view both documentaries on the M.A. in Film Studies’ Facebook page
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