The Artist & the Astronaut tells the unlikely love story between the artist Pat Musick, a civil rights activist, and the Apollo astronaut Jerry Carr as they participate in some of the most historic events in human history. The film is filled with never-before-seen footage of the early space pioneers and features interviews with key figures from that era. It chronicles Pat’s and Jerry’s vastly different paths as they traverse uncertain times, eventually coming together to render some of America’s most enduring art. The Artist & the Astronaut is an uplifting love story proving that curiosity, perseverance, and empathy for others can be powerful agents of change.

The story of the making of this documentary is as unlikely as the story depicted in the film. Bill Muench, a full-time teacher, and basketball coach, at the urging of his wife, decides to make a documentary on a local Vermont couple. He embarked on this journey with no plan or budget. In the next six years, he traveled to nine states and two continents to interview numerous Apollo Astronauts, their wives, award-winning authors, artists, art historians, and even NASA directors of mission control. Eventually teaming with music legend Todd Hobin, they produce a story that otherwise would have never been told.

A Q & A with filmmaker Bill Muench and composer Todd Hobin will follow the screening.

This program is presented as part of the Cambridge Science Festival. Admission is free.

Seating is limited and pre-registration is strongly encouraged. Please note that all seats will be released to the general public 10 minutes prior to the program’s start time. To guarantee a seat, please arrive early.

Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project is a feature documentary that takes us through the mindscape of legendary poet Nikki Giovanni as she reflects on her life and legacy. Nikki’s voice guides us across time and space, through dreams and remembrances, and across decades of American history as the film reimagines her most iconic work with visual lyricism fit for a poet. Present day finds Nikki in a late chapter of life, reckoning with health struggles and the inevitable march of time. However, in her art and dreams, Nikki ventures beyond her own lifetime to Middle Passage and Mars, always keeping hold of possibility. She urges us to dream of a better future where equity and justice reign and Black women lead, calling us to action with an unforgettable mantra: “We’re going to Mars.”

$15 General Public
$5 for MIT ID holders

Seating is limited. Pre-registration strongly suggested.

As America raced to beat the Soviet Union to the moon, a Black astronaut candidate came closer to launching into space than anyone we ever knew. In THE SPACE RACE, directors Lisa Cortés and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza profile the pioneering Black pilots, scientists, and engineers who joined NASA to serve their country in space, even as their country failed to achieve equality for them back on Earth. From 1963, when the assassination of JFK thwarted Captain Ed Dwight’s quest to reach the moon, to 2020, when the echoes of the civil unrest sparked by the killing of George Floyd reached the International Space Station, the story of African Americans at NASA is a tale of world events colliding with the aspirations of uncommon men. The bright dreams of Afrofuturism become reality in THE SPACE RACE, turning science fiction into science fact, and forever redefining what “the right stuff” looks like, giving us new heroes to celebrate and a fresh history to explore.

$15 General Public
$5 for MIT ID holders

Seating is limited. Pre-registration strongly suggested.

IN THE WHALE is a feature-length film about arguably the greatest fish story ever told, though this one is true. It's the account of a man who survived to tell the tale of being swallowed by a whale, and what happened after being spit out.

In the shark-filled waters off Cape Cod, Michael Packard has long tempted fate. For several months a year, Packard and his longtime mate, Josiah Mayo, cast off nearly every morning around dawn and navigate through the half-light to their diving grounds off Provincetown, the idiosyncratic, isolated community where they grew up at the tip of the Cape. Packard buckles on his scuba tank and plunges into the cold waters to hunt on the seafloor.

As the region’s last-remaining commercial lobster diver, the 57-year-old father has had his share of harrowing experiences, which include close encounters with great whites, nearly drowning, and having to pull up the body of a fellow diver. He even survived a plane crash in the jungles of Costa Rica, where he ran a charter fishing business. But what happened to him on a routine dive during a clear June morning was something he never imagined possible, and many around the world refused to believe.

In an experience of biblical proportions, Packard was engulfed by a humpback whale, caught in the watery cavity of its massive mouth. After some 30 seconds of a pitch-black captivity, in which he expected to die, he was spit out, fins first, to the surface, where Mayo and another fisherman rescued him.

The publicity was similarly dizzying for the reclusive fisherman, whose survival story spread around the world in news dispatches. But what came after the limelight dimmed was even more significant for Packard.

$15 General Public
$5 for MIT ID holders

Seating is limited. Pre-registration strongly suggested.