Alfred P. Sloan Foundation at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival

sloan logoThe Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a founding and signature sponsor of the Tribeca Film Festival since 2002, was proud to join with Tribeca in sponsoring screenings, panels and readings at the 2009 Film Festival. Sloan’s partnership with Tribeca forms part of a national program to stimulate leading artists in film, television, and theater to create more realistic and compelling stories about science and technology and to challenge existing stereotypes about scientists, engineers and mathematicians in the popular imagination.

This year, the Foundation sponsored three exciting events at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival, in addition to developing and producing narrative features that dramatize compelling stories about science and technology through the TFI Sloan Filmmaker Fund

 

The TFI Sloan Filmmaker Fund awarded $170,000 in grants to the 2009 selected projects at The TFI awards ceremony and cocktail reception, held at City Winery.

 

A special screening of Stanley Kramer’s Inherit the Wind, was followed by a panel discussion moderated by Liane Hansen of NPR with special guests from the realms of film and science. The discussion explored how a scientific explanation of the world, backed by evidence, can bring both public and private controversy. Panelists included Pulitzer-Prize winning author Jonathan Weiner; Jon Amiel, director of Creation; Dr. Eugenie Scott and David Kohn.

Inherit the Wind
Director: Stanley Kramer
USA | 1960 | 128 min | Feature Narrative

Nearly a half-century ago, an all-star cast (including Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, and Gene Kelly) and director brought this fictionalized version of the infamous 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial to the big screen. This modern classic was shown in recognition of Charles Darwin's 200th birthday as well as the 150th anniversary of the publication of his seminal (and to some, still controversial) On the Origin of Species.

 

The TFI Sloan Filmmaker Fund presented a reading of excerpts from select 2008 & 2009 grantee screenplays at the Helen Mills Theatre. The showcased projects included Alex Lyras’ Alva, Greg Harrison’s Radioactive Boy Scout, and select grantee projects from 2009. The readings were directed by Evan Cabnet, casted by David Caparelliotis, and performed by a star cast including Chris Abbott, Remy Auberjonois, Kate Burton, Tanya Fisher, David Harbour, and David Wilson Barnes.

The 2008 project details are as follows:

Alva
Writers: Alex Lyras, Michael Dorian
Logline: Was Thomas Edison America’s greatest inventor, or a clever thief with a pioneering acumen for marketing? Alva explores the life of Edison from a precocious young rule breaker, to the full blown "Wizard of Menlo Park."

Radioactive Boy Scout
Writer/Director: Greg Harrison; Producers: Danielle Renfrew, William Horberg
Logline: Based on the true story of a 16-year-old Boy Scout in Michigan who, in 1995, attempted to build the core of a nuclear reactor in his backyard shed and was shut down by the Federal government.