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For nearly a century

planetariums have been educating, entertaining and astounding audiences.

The immersive power of the planetarium is unrivalled in its ability to transport audiences into space.

For seventy years planetariums relied on star projectors to recreate the night sky on their domed surfaces. It was not until the mid-1990s that video projectors were first used to create the image on the dome. This was

the birth of Fulldome Cinema. No longer restricted to displaying the night sky, fulldome cinema has the power to transport audiences anywhere.

Lying back in the planetarium is a visceral experience. Completely immersed by the dome, it becomes almost impossible to know where its curved surfaces start and finish. The screen in effect disappears as you are transported to another world,

this is indeed a transcendental experience.

The Melbourne Planetarium welcomes you to the Dome Under Fulldome Film Festival. The first time in Australia that there has been a festival dedicated to

fulldome cinema. The festival is proud to present to you a fantastic array of the best fulldome productions from around the world. With forty two films from sixteen countries and films ranging from experimental to documentary and

incredibly emotional journeys, there is something for everyone.

The Dome Under Festival and the Melbourne Planetarium would like to wholeheartedly thank all of our sponsors for their generous support. Without you this festival would never

have happened.

Dome Under Awards

The Dome Under Festival jury will be awarding five Dome Under Awards in the following categories:

Best Astronomy Education Best Narrative Best Experimental Best Short Best Student Work

Alicia Sometimes is a writer, poet and broadcaster. She is a regular guest on 774, Radio National and is one sixth of The Outer Sanctum Podcast. Alicia was editor of the national literary journal Going Down Swinging for seven years. Alicia was one of the 3RRR’s Breakfasters team in 2015 and on Aural Text for fourteen years. She has appeared in ABC TV’s Sunday Arts and ABC News Breakfast. Her poems have been in Best Australian Poems, Best Australian Science Writing, Overland, Southerly, Westerly, The Age etc.

She was writer and director of the science-poetry show, Elemental which toured in 2015 and 2016. Alicia is the director of the science/art show Particle/Wave that has featured at the Melbourne Festival 2018, National Science Week 2019 and the World Science Festival Brisbane.

Beginning at the Melbourne Planetarium, Jack White went on to work as a Producer and Director of fulldome productions in the US, Japan, China and South Africa for organisations including the Smithsonian, Franklin Institute and National Geographic. His productions have been awarded at DomeFest and the International Festival of Scientific Visualisation and distributed to hundreds of planetaria worldwide. Internationally, he was involved in the development and production of fulldome stereo (3D), 8K capture and projection systems. Locally, he was ardent supporter of the Australian fulldome community, especially in providing professional development opportunities. Jack White retired from the dome in 2016.

Monica Zetlin is a Project Manager and Producer with 20 years’ experience in the Media, Arts and Cultural sector. As an Exhibition Producer at Museum Victoria, Monica produced award-winning Planetarium productions and led the production of diverse multimedia experiences for major exhibitions, as well as producing a range of exhibitions. Many of these projects have been recognised nationally and internationally for their technical innovation and creativity. Monica now works with innovative tech creatives Art Processors.

ALICIA SOMETIMES

JACK WHITE

Introducing the Dome Under Festival Jury

MONICA ZETLIN

Children’s ShowsNight of Falling Stars – Revealing the secrets of meteor showersSolariansKhrumka and the Magic RocketAutumn Stories in the Sky

Ningaloo: Australia’s Other Great ReefHow it was Told to MePlanets 360 Modern

{5minutesofdeath}ECHO – a sonicsphere S is for Episode: an Animated DocumentarySeedsFour ElementsUltimate Space DriverGiraffaThe Dome is the MaestroBeautiful Baby TilapiaApollo: 50 Years of InnovationReflectance

Yogi’s Journey to the Mystic Universe

NASA Explorations: Touching the Sun: Parker Solar Probe Birth of Planet EarthThrough Darcelle’s EyesCapcom Go! The Apollo StoryVestige

Student and Experimental Films

SESSION FOUR1600 – 1730

Beyond the Sun – In search of a new EarthÁróraWhale Super Highway

Big Astronomy: People, Places, DiscoveriesUnseen UniverseMars 1001

IMMERSIVEFractal TimeSONOLUMINLatenteMy Dream HomeUrban LevitationStarmanSphere

Explorations: The Dawn of OrionExpedition ReefDestination Mars: The New FrontierVoyager: The Never-Ending Journey

Awards CeremonyAwards Ceremony & Best of ScreeningN.B. Session Nine is free entry and available to anyone with a valid ticket to Session Eight (including all Sunday Pass holders and Season Pass Holders)

SESSION SIX1100 – 1230

Experimental Films

SESSION ONE0930 – 1100

Family Shows 1 SESSION TWO1130 – 1300

SESSION THREE1400 – 1530

Astronomy & Documentary 1

Family Shows 2SESSION FIVE900 – 1030

Astronomy & Documentary 2

SESSION SEVEN1330 – 1500

SESSION EIGHT1530 – 1700

Astronomy & Documentary 3

SESSION NINE1800 – 1900

Saturday 8 February Sunday 9 February

Night of Falling Stars – Revealing the secrets of meteor showers

Hiromitsu Kohsaka Running time: 22:00

Shooting stars, they emit light and fade away in an instant. What are they? Most shooting stars appear on certain days each year, a phenomenon we call meteor showers. Why do these special nights happen? What is the connection that links shooting stars and our solar system? Come take a journey through time and space to discover the secret of meteor showers.

Solarians

Juli Tagger Running time: 10:00

A group of strange interstellar travellers will go out in search of new planets on which to begin life.

Khrumka and the Magic Rocket

Iryna Filipova & Marina Efanova Running time: 32:00

Khrumka and his friend Kippy learn about the space in a little school forest and then, with a cute robot go on a journey through the Solar System in a magic rocket.

Autumn Stories in the Sky

Vanessa Rancour Running time: 25:39

Narrated by Lucy Lawless and John Rhys-Davies, join us for an adventure as our stellar navigators explore our night sky and delve into the legends behind the constellations we see through the seasons. Discover how constellations can be used to find nebulae, galaxies, star clusters, planets, and John’s personal favourites, dwarf planets; while Lucy introduces you to fantastic figures from Greek mythology and Mãori pakiwaitara with celestial stories in a way they’ve never been told before.

Children’s ShowsSESSION ONE

Ningaloo: Australia’s Other Great Reef

Julia Redwood Running time: 45:00

Young marine scientist, Anna Cresswell, takes an extraordinary submarine voyage in search of the key to life on Australia’s iconic Ningaloo Reef. Anna is on a mission to witness the annual, synchronised, mass coral spawning, one of nature’s most spectacular and mysterious reproductive events. If scientists can come to understand how it works, it may well offer them solutions to protecting coral reefs from the ravages of climate change. Along the way, Anna navigates through a maze of spectacular coral structures,inhabited by an abundance of exotic marine life, in one of the most diverse and complex eco systems ever discovered.

How it was Told to Me

OHU Domes Running time: 17:25

How it was told to me: Māori Legends from New Zealand is a collection of three New Zealand Māori stories of the southern skies. The first, The Creation Story tells of Ranginui the Sky Father and Papatūanuku the Earth Mother and how their children rebelled against them to bring light into our world.The following piece, Rona and the Moon tells of how Marama, the Moon came to look the way it does in our southern skies today. And The Great Waka tells of how a fisherman, Tamareriti created the Milky Way with all its constellations, and for the first time brought light to our Southern night skies.

Planets 360 Modern

Max Crow Running time: 26:00

The Planets 360 is a re-imagining of British composer Gustav Holst’s The Planets orchestral suite. It uses the awe-inspiring Fulldome format to create a sonically driven and immersive experience. The show aims to bring new audiences to the dome by fusing art, music and science into a 360° spectacle. The Modern edition of the show, driven by a contemporary soundtrack takes a more abstract and surreal route through the cosmos. Each planet is a dance between the musician and the visual artist to expand the mind and explore our place in our universe.

Family Shows 1 SESSION TWO

5MINUTESOFDEATH

A KLEMOPICTURES PRODUCTION

A FILM BY

PIA MOZET AND JENNY ELISABETH KLEINE

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Pia Mozet & Jenny Elisabeth Kleine Running time: 04:58

Death is a topic humans try to avoid until the end. What seems most unpleasant to show is actually shown in its very own beauty. This short film visualises the stages of biological death: livor mortis, autolysis, and decomposition. Shot in macro the film depicts each stage in an abstract way. A narrator is guiding the audience and provides information in a popular scientific way. This film aims for new perspectives about death and tries to portray it as a process that includes way more life than we expect.

ECHO – a sonicsphere

Michael Gamböck & Franziska Hauber Running time: 04:01

ECHO - a sonicsphere is an immersive music visualisation by Michael Gamböck and Franziska Hauber. A bassy Hip Hop-Instrumental is visualised by a journey through a vinyl disc. The viewer can experience a record in a way that they have never seen before in real life. They are the needle of a record player, gliding along in the groove of the record and seeing deposited dust. In this dust the individual hairs do have their separate movements. During the trip the realistic image of the disc will change into a more abstract version with changing shapes and colours.

S is for Episode: an Animated Documentary

Jing Augusto-Wuethrich Running time: 05:39

Hallucinatory experiences of schizophrenic subjects can never be captured by a film camera. With the indexicality to sound, the only way to visualise this inner mental experience is through animation. The visualisations provide us hints of what they see, what they hear, what they feel. It brings us inside a reality so different from ours. This documentary is based on an actual audio interview footage of a schizophrenic patient describing her hallucinatory phases. An immersive media experience.

Seeds

Maimiliane Nirschl Running time 04:02

Like seeds from trees, paper-kite like, colourful creatures are falling into an inspiring world rich in form and colour. Seeds tells the story of the “birth of an idea” on a symbolic level, its partially destructive development and maturation process, up to its autonomy.

Student and Experimental FilmsSESSION THREE

the dome is the maestroA Cirque du Bauhaus Music Visualization

A film by Pedro RodolphoWith composition from Acácio Piedade

Performed by Cirque du Bauhaus Orchestra

Ultimate Space Driver

Arkadiy Grigoryants Running time: 07:00

CAUTION: For experienced drivers only. Are you ready for a new challenge? It’s official! Ultimate Space Driver is out and ready to test your skills. Advanced and upgraded tracks, new futuristic locations, lots of thrills, and tons of excitement. Experience an immersive ride as never before. Feel the rush of excitement when the engine starts… See space craft hurtling past… Smell the exhaust fumes in the atmosphere…. Hear the screech of fellow drivers, scrambling for position…. Go to the edge… and beyond.

Four Elements

Natalia Oliwiak Running time: 16:40

Four Elements - the fulldome animation about immeasurable power of elements: water, air, earth, fire. In ascetic, poetic pictures we can see the increasing force of elements that can be contemplative and relaxing but also destructive and terrifying, which makes a human being defenceless. It’s also a reflection of our emotions, personification of the primary images encoded in our subconsciousness. Through those images, we can escape from surrounding reality and embark on an immersive journey across the elementary phenomena to the inside of our soul.

Giraffa

Helen He Running time: 02:05

Fun educational facts about giraffes.

The Dome is the Maestro

Pedro Rodolpho Ramos Camargo Running time: 03:45

Visual music. The development of artistic languages to connect the realms of visual and sound arts has been a life-long practice for artists throughout the 20th Century and onwards. Tracing back to the legacy of visual music pioneers like Mary Ellen Bute and Oskar Fischinger and early Bauhaus Masters like Kandinsky and Paul Klee, the animation is a music visualisation of a composition by Brazilian composer Acácio Piedade - an exploration on the contemporary possibilities of fulldome as an immersive environment for visual music experiences.

Beautiful Baby Tilapia

Nastassia Dyro Running time: 04:30

This is a story about a little fish swimming in a big river in search of her missing family. In a simple and metaphoric way, the story tells about environmental problems. The cartoon is made for kids and all the illustrations were created by 5-7 years old kids from Nyamalango primary school (Mwanza, Tanzania). For some of them, it was their first painting experience!

Apollo: 50 Years of Innovation

Alec Nathan, Eric Posey, Alyson Vogelsang Running time: 06:00

50 years ago, the human race made history when astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong first stepped on the Moon. But what did it take to get us there? Why are they called the Apollo Missions? Apollo: 50 Years of Innovation gives us an in depth look at how the Apollo Missions came to be.

Reflectance

Jason Stapleton Running time: 08:22

Reflectance explores the built environment via Lidar scanned data. As a short film it negotiates the dark, broken-up environment of its namesake: recorded reflectance values, which for a moment appears much richer than its subject, as if it were bringing to the surface the conceptual constructs of our engaging with the twin concepts of depth and meaning, leaving one as absorbed as disoriented….

Yogi’s Journey to the Mystic Universe

Georgii Aistov Running time: 21:24

The Vedas, ancient Hindu texts, describe the birth and death of the Universe as the opening and closing of a lotus flower. This cosmic lotus contains seven lower and seven upper planes of existence. Join a mystic yogi on a meta-physical tour of the Vedic Universe from the depths of hell (patala-loka), through our world (bhu-loka), to the highest plane of being (satya-loka).

NASA Explorations: Touching the Sun: Parker Solar Probe

Thor Metzinger Running time: 06:48

Explorations is a series of short films covering a wide variety of NASA Science Missions. We distribute these films free to all planetariums. In this episode, we investigate the Parker Solar Probe, as it dives into the Sun’s corona, using slingshots around Venus, as it becomes the fastest spacecraft ever sent into space.

Capcom Go! The Apollo Story

Max Crow Running time: 25:00

CAPCOM GO! celebrates the achievements of the Apollo program and what it took to put the first human on the Moon almost 50 years ago. It will introduce a new generation to the immense challenges they overcame and will inspire them to become the explorers, designers, engineers, thinkers and dreamers of the future.

Vestige

Aaron Bradbury Running time: 13:00

Vestige is an immersive documentary that uses volumetric capture to take the viewer on a journey into the mind of Lisa as she remembers her lost love. Within an empty void, fragments of past memories appear of their life together and eventually lead us to the shocking moment of Erik’s death. Originally produced as a real-time, room-scale 6DOF VR experience the fulldome video adaptation captures the beauty and intimacy of the experience and shares it with the whole audience.

Birth of Planet Earth

Thomas Lucas Running time: 24:00

Birth of Planet Earth tells the twisted tale of our planet’s origins. Scientists now believe that our galaxy is filled with solar systems, including up to a billion planets roughly the size of our own. The film employs advanced, data-driven, cinematic-quality visualizations to explore some of the greatest questions in science today: How did Earth become a living planet in the wake of our solar system’s violent birth? What does its history tell us about our chances of finding other worlds that are truly Earth-like?

Through Darcelle’s Eyes

Brad Gill & Rachel Bracker Smaldone Running time: 20:30

Walter Cole, aka Darcelle XV, is the oldest living performing drag queen in the West Coast’s longest running drag show. At 87 years old, Darcelle shows no signs of slowing down. She continues to wow audiences with her weekly performances, and advocacy for the LGBTQIA community is always part of the mix. Such work is nothing new for Darcelle, who has been an integral part of the gay-rights movement in Portland since it began.

SESSION FOUR Astronomy & Documentary 1

www.whalesuperhighway.comFULL DOME EXPERIENCE

www.whalesuperhighway.comwww.whalesuperhighway.com

Beyond the Sun – In search of a new Earth

Javier Bollaín Running time: 26:00

Celeste is fighting off sleep by reading a book on astronomy when, through her bedroom window, she receives a visit from Moon and his mischievous helpers. With the aid of his helpers, Moon leads Celeste on a journey through the universe to discover what an exoplanet is and how it can be detected.

Áróra

Tommy Caron & Sarah Ouellet Running time: 21:00

An immersive experience about the beauty of Auroras. Take a journey across time and space to understand the science behind the phenomena and to experience the stories of our ancestors. Guided by the lullaby of the Dawn Goddess. This cinematic adventure invites the audience to join the dance of these eerie lights over remote Icelandic landscapes.

Whale Super Highway

Julia Redwood Running time: 45:00

A breathtaking journey on one of the world’s greatest whale migration routes as a team of experts attempt to unlock the secrets behind one of the greatest environmental comebacks ever - the humpback whale. An extraordinary journey from the top of Western Australia to Antarctica. If they can discover why the humpbacks are so successful on this super highway, it may help in the fight to save another mighty mammal, the largest animal ever to have lived - the endangered blue whale.

Family Shows 2SESSION FIVE

8K

Universe.indd 1 8/25/2006 2:28:04 PM

Big Astronomy, People, Places, Discoveries

Ryan Wyatt Running time: 25:30

It takes many people with diverse backgrounds, talents, and skills to run a world-class observatory. Meet a few of these people as they share the wonder of the sky—and the excitement of discovery.

Explore the world-class observatories nestled in northern Chile’s mountains and learn why Chile, with its beautiful mountain ranges and clear, cloudless skies create an ideal environment for studying the cosmos.

Unseen Universe

Terrence Murtaugh Running time: 25:00

Made in association with ESO and the Houston Museum of Natural Science, Unseen Universe explores the cosmos far beyond our human senses. For millions of years our view of the heavens has been limited by our eyes; allowing us to only see a narrow band of electromagnetic radiation we call visible light.

Unseen Universe provides a stunning visual treat as we explore the latest splendours of the heavens with a stirring score performed by the Utah Film Orchestra. It is an uplifting look at the new era of astronomy and what has yet to come.

Mars 1001

Robin Sip Running time: 52:00

An international crew of astronauts is about to embark on the first interplanetary journey in history, the first manned mission to the surface of Mars. Reporter Miles O’Brien is reporting live from his space headquarters TV studio in New York, while events unfold for the crew in their 1001 day long mission.

SESSION SIX Astronomy & Documentary 2

IMMERSIVE

Jérémy Oury & Antoine Briot Running time: 08:10

IMMERSIVE plays with the Op art concept and minimalist content to produce illusions and illimited perspective. Working with projected 3D shapes and with stroboscopic effects, this installation gives a new feeling of time and a sensation to be immersed into multiple mesmerised forms. The soundtrack is inspired by electronic melody derived from pure sinus and digital noises, recreating a real electro-acoustic noisist orchestra.

Fractal Time

Julius Horsthuis Running time: 11:00

Fractal Time is an abstract, immersive film that plays with the origin and future of our universe. Horsthuis considers his work ‘a journey of discovery’ and the audience is invited to step inside these new, fractal realities. The results, accompanied by an original score, are both cinematic in their visual scope, and operatic in their approach: cities emerge from space ships, bottoms of ocean turn into jungles, at any point in time anything can happen and feel as if they reach what our imagination is capable of.

SONOLUMIN

Diana Reichenbach Running time: 05:02

SONOLUMIN is a stop-frame animated 360˚ fulldome film exploring relationships of light, sound and space.

Latente

Sergio Mora-Diaz Running time: 03:50

Latente is an audio visual exercise about geometry, scale and dynamic perception of space. Using essential shapes such as points and lines, the piece creates an abstract universe with its own structures and rules, defined by mathematical and geometric patterns. The resulting forms move, change, interact and arrange as a complex system, a living organism that pulses and expands to surround us like a landscape. Latente transports us through three-dimensional compositions with different depth planes, evoking behaviours of nature and the cosmos.

Experimental FilmsSESSION SEVEN

Starman

Thor Freudenthal & Kelon Cen Running time: 05:10

IAMEVE’s tale begins with the release of Starman, a mesmerising fulldome video short where two soulmates are reunited in a multi-dimensional plane of existence. Starman is part of a sci-fantasy transmedia fairy-tale called The Everything Nothing, about creation, fractured identity, and transcending physical form.

Sphere

Robot Koch & Mickael Le Goff Running time: 45:00

Award-winning German composer Robot Koch joins forces with French visual artist Mickael Le Goff to present Sphere, an audio visual experience designed especially for planetariums and full dome venues. The show takes the audience on a trip through space and time, oscillating between deep, synth-driven science-fiction moments and blissful suspension, carried by lush string arrangements.

Urban Levitation

Sergey Prokofyev Running time: 05:10

This short fulldome film is an architectural visual story based on the conceptual project “Sports Tower” that has become a finalist in the eVolo 2011 skyscraper competition.

My Dream Home

Paul Fletcher Running time: 03:49

Dreams intersect the real and imagined, the past, present and future directions. My dreams are my personal home. My dreams are also my hopes for the future which I want to live in. The home of my dreams is the earth.

Learn the secrets of Coral Reefs as you embark on an oceanic safari of the world’s most vibrant—and endangered—marine ecosystems.

Narrated by Lea Salonga

a c alifornia ac ademy of sciences original production

NASA Explorations: The Dawn of Orion

Thor Metzinger Running time: 05:14

Explorations is a series of short films covering a wide variety of NASA Science Missions. We distribute these films free to all planetariums. In this episode, we cover the development of The Orion spacecraft as it follows in Apollo’s footsteps towards the next crewed Lunar mission.

Expedition Reef

Ryan Wyatt Running time: 26:00

Learn the secrets of the ‘rainforests of the sea’ as you embark on an oceanic safari of the world’s most vibrant - and endangered - marine ecosystems. Narrated by Tony Award® winner Lea Salonga, Expedition Reef takes viewers on an undersea adventure based on visualisations of reef ecosystems in the Philippines and the Caribbean. Along the way, discover how corals grow, feed, reproduce, and support over 25% of all marine life on Earth—while facing unprecedented threats from climate change, habitat destruction, and overfishing.

Destination Mars: The New Frontier

Dani LeBlanc Running time: 32:06

Ever wonder what it would be like to fly to Mars? NASA – and others – have their sights set on the Red Planet and they’re building the technology to get us there. Explore the work being done around the globe to help make the dream of getting humans to Mars a reality. Fly through the International Space Station, where astronauts are already living and working in space, and follow the rockets and vehicles that will take humans beyond the Moon, and one day, all the way to Mars! Travel along as we imagine this remarkable journey.

Voyager: The Never-Ending Journey

Yuriy Gapon Running time: 26:40

The movie tells a thrilling story of the most remarkable space mission in human history. In 1977 two space probes were launched to explore the farthest planets of the Solar system: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune along with their moons. These spacecrafts greatly enriched our knowledge of the distant worlds. Now after four decades they explore the interstellar space. Like two bottles launched into the cosmic ocean, both probes carry an interstellar message – the Golden Record, intended for any alien civilisation.

Astronomy & Documentary 3SESSION EIGHT