NETFLIX FOR SCIENCE: An Interview With Filmmaker Alexis Gambis

Introduction

Alexis Gambis is a French-Venezuelan filmmaker and biologist. His films combine documentary and fiction, often embracing animal perspectives and experimenting with new forms of scientific storytelling. He founded the Imagine Science Film Festival which recently celebrated its 15th year of showcasing science in film from around the world. In 2016, he launched the sister portal Labocine. Coined the “Netflix for science,” the VOD platform provides a virtual ecosystem to experience science cinema in all its flavors by hybridizing forms, and fostering a dialogue between scientists, artists, and educators.

His latest feature Son of Monarchs dissects through issues of identity, immigration, and animal/human evolution. This Mexican American bilingual allegorical drama had its home premiere in October 2020 at the 18th Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia and International Premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. The film has been awarded the 2021 Alfred P. Sloan Prize, awarded every year to a film at the Sundance Film Festival that focuses on science or technology as a theme or depicts a scientist, engineer, or mathematician as a major character.

The film will be premiering in the Next competition at Sundance, dedicated to “pure, bold works distinguished by an innovative, forward-thinking approach to storytelling.”He has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, VICE, Nature, Science, Cell, and WNYC. His mixed media installations have also been presented in a range of art and science spaces, notably dOCUMENTA, Smithsonian Museum, Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, and the Nobel Museum.

Interview

Glen Dower:

Alexis, how are you, Sir?

Alexis Gambis:

I’m good Glen, how are you doing? It looks dark where you are, I don’t know where you are.

Glen Dower:

I am in the Middle East sir, in Doha, Qatar. And it has just gone 8 pm.

Alexis Gambis:

Oh, I used to teach in Abu Dhabi. Fantastic! That’s crazy! I taught for a decade at NYU Abu Dhabi!

Glen Dower:

Oh fantastic, yeah I love it, I love the Middle East. I’ve taught in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and now Doha.  I’m originally from Ireland, so I’m still getting used to this heat! We’re in the middle of Ramadan now, I’m sure you remember that.

Alexis Gambis:

I do. Are you teaching there as well in Doha?

Glen Dower:

Yes indeed, I’m a commerce teacher. And what was nice, was going through your site and Labocine, just reminded me of my original love for science when I was growing up. I went into the humanities subjects, but I just remember biology, and of course, you’re a biologist yourself as well as a filmmaker.

I just remember biology being my favorite subject, and what hooked me to biology was the human’s ability to heal. And that’s always just stayed with me, even as I got older. I always think back to when you’re young, you twist your ankle and it’ll be repaired in half an hour. Now I twist my ankle, I have to wait two weeks for it to heal!

Alexis Gambis:

That’s the miracle of aging! No. The benefits of the platform are also to teach, you know, teach different disciplines in science using cinema. The idea is also to have, you know, to kind of bridge this sort of, this world of like scientific research and film streaming, you know. So I have this ability to be able to kind of capture the attention of people by showing the many ways in which science can be brought into storytelling, right? Because I think we sometimes, even when we’re students, we have a limited view of, you know, what a science film is, and there are so many ways of capturing it, right?

I mean, we know about documentaries and web videos, but there are so many ways and so many different cultures that sort of address that. So yeah, I also have vivid memories of my biology classes when I was a. I feel like it intimidates a lot of people, right, like the sciences when they’re younger. But I think that the ability to visualize science is such a key part of learning about it, so yeah. And telling stories around it, yeah.

Glen Dower:

It’s intimidating, like you say. So obviously my students will come to me and tell me about their chemistry lessons and physics lessons. I remember it’s so vast.

Alexis Gambis:

But Glen, one thing that I’ve noticed with students these days is that many students are, you know, major, like graduating in chemistry, but also interested in theater, and also taking film classes. So there’s a lot more because, at NYU in Abu Dhabi, I was teaching both biology and film, which was very unusual. That was one of the reasons I went to Abu Dhabi, which is that they offered me this sort of joint, this ability to be in both the arts and humanities and sciences. But yeah, that’s amazing about Doha.

Glen Dower:

I’m trying to get myself more interested in delivering the arts as well because they’re sort of pushed aside because I’m not sure. The culture does not do very well with movies and films. They love their films all day long, but there’s not that investment, shall we say. So with Labocine, for example, we’re not talking about science fiction movies. We’re talking about science facts and making them more accessible.

Alexis Gambis:

Well, I think it’s the idea of the Science New Wave, which is sort of a film movement that we started, which is inspired by the French New Wave. I think the idea is to explore the many ways in which science is brought into film. So science fiction technically is part of that. My films, my last film, which was about a butterfly scientist who transforms into a butterfly to cross the border between the US and Mexico, was at Sundance. It’s borderline science fiction. There are elements of, I mean, maybe not science fiction, but magical realism.

So we embrace science fiction. I think the key element is that there’s sort of a symbiotic relationship between scientists and filmmakers, right? That they’re sort of speaking to each other. And of course, we want to make sure that the facts are right. But like in Labocine, in one of the monthly issues, you’ll find scientific footage, you’ll find fiction movies, you’ll find documentaries, you’ll find shorts, experimental, and they’re all sort of addressing one topic, right? So, the March issue is about the brain.

So we kind of explore, you know, with this Oscar-nominated film, Eternal Memory, that’s like exploring, you know, memory loss and Alzheimer’s disease. But then we also have scientific footage of like, how do you map the brain? We have like a lot of different types of films. But I think the Science New Wave is all about embracing the many flavors of science cinema.

Glen Dower:

Were there points when something hit you and you said, we need to change this up? It wasn’t because scientists are seeing squares or something like that. And you said, but there’s such a link between, like you say, filmmakers and scientists, it’s all about exploring, it’s all about discovery, it’s all about taking risks, and bringing something new. Was there an incident that was just growing inside you?

Alexis Gambis:

Yeah, I think arts and science. I mean, you know, the birth of cinema was science, right? Like, the early films were scientific experiments, you know, trying to understand motion, trying to understand the running horse, the film. Yeah, the Moorbridge films. And I think this sort of divide between, I mean, specifically film and science, I think there has been sort of this notion that science in film, needs to communicate science, kind of, right? But in some ways, we’ve lost sort of the poetry of just telling scientific stories about the body, and about our planet.

Often, we use film to talk about pressing issues, like climate change, and endangered species, and I think this is very important. But I think it’s also important to sort of embrace like, the sort of beauty and the stories around science. I have this sort of hybrid persona, where I’m both a filmmaker and a scientist. I have a PhD in biology, so I was keen on speaking to many scientists, many of whom are interested in film. Another thing, Glen, is when you’re a scientist, a lot of your work is imagining, you know? You have to imagine through microscopes, and you have to create narratives about how you think about things. You have to produce a design. So that’s how all of this was born.

Initially, I started a film festival, which has been running for seventeen years. And then sort of the idea of the movements, the science new wave was to sort of formulate it into something where I could have people join the movement, almost like a little bit of a campaign. The idea was to have people resonate with the science new wave and say ‘Oh, I can understand the need for bridging these kinds of worlds of science and film.’ So, that’s how it started. And now we have many scientists and filmmakers, and hybrids, that are making films that we consider to be part of this science new wave movement.

Glen Dower:

It’s really exciting stuff. So I was lucky enough to see the March issue, shall we say I was like you said, the brain is the screen. And I didn’t know what to expect. I just went through and have over ten pieces there. And they’re just amazing and truly global. We’ve got USA, UK, all over Europe.

Alexis Gambis:

There’s also a beautiful Irish film that you should watch called Terraforma. That is not in this issue, but it was part of our festival, which I’ll send you but it’s about, you know, creating sort of landscaping are creating sort of these like arch artificial landscapes of where we live in our habitats. It’s a beautiful film by Irish filmmakers.

Glen Dower:

So how do you gather because that was seen the warmest main thing is a platform is also an archive. How is all that all those amazing pieces? How do you organize those and bring them together? Are you sent you ask for them? Have you built this amazing library?

Alexis Gambis:

So part of the way we do it is that every month we have a theme, right? So the brain is the screen the idea of this issue was to really kind of gather films that focus on how we think about the brain, right? The brain and fiction, the brain and documentary, the brain in science. So we have a festival every year where we select around 60-70 films. So some of the films come from there. But actually, how we get these films is that we have a huge archive.

So we draw from that archive, and we invite filmmakers and scientists, to be part of it. I think, especially for filmmakers, they’re interested, you know? Distribution of the film is choppy waters. And I think a lot of people are interested when their work is curated as part of a larger theme. They may not think of their film, as potentially being only about these topics. But I think gathering filmmakers, artists, and scientists into a theme gets people very excited.

So we, you know, in a very practical sense, we send out invitations to be part of the issue. We also look through the sciences around the world. And you were mentioning Glen, this, the global nature of it, you know, we have films from all over the world, we have, you know, like a music video from Japan, we have, you know, scientific footage from Harvard University, we have experimental films from Austria and we invite them to be part of the issue.

Equally as important as the films are the people, right? So every film, you’ll notice that they have, there is something called a habitat, which is basically like the profiles of the people, it’s, it has elements of LinkedIn. But the idea is to bridge, you know, the world of arts and science, and to show that many people have an interest in those things. And so the platform is sort of not only featuring the films but also the people that are that are behind these films.

Glen Dower:

I look around the sites, of course, and it’s very inclusive, and very welcoming, and just exciting and dynamic. And they’re trying, you’re like the identity of creators as well. So it must have taken a long time for that to evolve and get to a point where you think this is perfect. So where are we going to take it next? What’s the next stage? Do you think?

Alexis Gambis:

It’s a very good question, Glen. So I think the platform is where, you know, we have a very ambitious goal of like, disrupting how we think about like, film streaming in general, like, so the idea is to show that the films, you know, the films that get made, you know, and platforms in general, like Netflix, or HBO, they don’t necessarily sort of emphasize so much on like the ecosystem of people that make these films, right?

It’s oftentimes not. I mean, sometimes, barely even the director gets a mention, you know? it’s like the film’s just a play. I understand some people just want to go on these platforms and watch films. But I think it’s really important to highlight the people around it. And it’s not only about directors and producers and writers but there can be anthropologists, there can be biologists, there can be, you know, all kinds of people that are forming these films.

So one of the big things that we’re trying to do with the platform is to emphasize not only the people around these films but also kind of the material around them. And we have something called field notes. And field notes are basically, you remember in the days when we had DVDs and you used to have all this like bonus material?

Glen Dower:

Ah, the days of the physical media! Bonus features were the reason I’d buy DVDs!

Alexis Gambis:

I know! So that’s what we’re trying to do. So we launched that a few weeks ago, and it’s called field notes. You go to a film, not all the films have it, but you have like a little button that’s called field notes. The people that are behind these films, can upload recordings. They can have records and can upload them as a PDF. An article, or things that sort of are either inspiration or part of the process of making these films. And that idea is basically to kind of show you all of the flesh around the making of a movie.

Another big goal is what you mentioned at the beginning. It’s transforming education, you know? Because students, when you’re teaching them, class, you know, let’s talk about biology because we were mentioning that it’s really interesting to have students watch a film and analyze the film and learn about science through not only sort of film analysis but also potentially making a film. This is what I do in my classes.

I have them make films about like, for example, if I had my students make films about healing, everyone would make it based on their sort of cultural lens based on their own experiences. These would be personal films, but they would all be talking about healing. This is so important. Many universities are asking for this. So we started helping classrooms and educational spaces to kind of give them access to our database and help them curate for classes.

Glen Dower:

Okay, so the next level is inspiring a lot more. At Cinema Scholars, we have a lot of readers who are in college and moving into filmmaking. I just have one last question, because I’m also in the process of designing a documentary, centered around anxiety, and the study of that and the processing of that. What would you recommend are the first stages for someone like me or someone who’s twenty-one, about to head into the big bad world, and starting their filmmaking process? What advice would you give them?

Alexis Gambis:

It’s a good question. I think the advice that I would give somebody who’s working, I think you have to treat the film as research. I think the platform also helps with that. So if you have a specific topic, I think it’s important, to show people that there are certain ways in which we think about how to make a film. And of course, there are books. There’s formulaic ways of thinking about it as well.

But I feel like when you show them the plurality, like the many ways in which films get made, and show that to somebody that is in the process of making a film, I think that helps them sort of think about the form of how they want to tell their story and things around like, you know, how do you, how do you have your subjects? I mean, if you’re doing a documentary, there’s also like the ethics of how do you include your subjects in the process of making the film?

How do you play with this notion of, which is a class that I teach at NYU and in Abu Dhabi, how do you play with this notion of documentary versus fiction and the play on both, right? At what points do you, do you kind of consider merging it? The other big thing, Glen, is to make a film, it’s all about community. It’s all about knowing people who would be willing to become like your collaborators, right? And I think that the key to any film is a film requires so many people to get off the ground.

And there can be moments when you’re making a film, I don’t know if you experienced it, but I have, where you have these like solitary moments, right? You feel like you’re sort of alone trying to climb up this mountain. And I think it’s really important to just have a community of filmmakers, of researchers, of people that are willing to kind of be part of that adventure with you. So that is something that we’re trying to do with this platform is really kind of show you, you know, this film was made because there was, you know, a biologist that met a filmmaker that met this actor and just kind of came together.

So those would be my words of advice. And another one, another big one, is to not be worried about showing work in progress. Because, and this is my own belief, but I think that exposing the process to people, even potential people like financiers and funders, is important. You want to decide at what moments you want to show the process. 

Glen Dower:

Perfect advice. Thank you so much. So that idea of community, isn’t it? And I think that’s becoming a more and more important term for us all as you’re building one right now. Sir, thank you so much for your time. I’ve enjoyed the conversation and best of luck with the new wave.

Alexis Gambis:

Thank you so much. And please be part of the new wave. But thank you so much, Glen. Good luck in Doha. It’s great to be in touch!

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