STAR STUFF

a film by Milad Tangshir

Three astronomical observatories spread across the globe: Atacama desert

(Chile), La Palma Island (Canaries), the Great Karoo (South Africa). In these

remote places two kinds of human communities live: the scientists, busy

watching and investigating the sky through their telescopes and computers; and

the natives – peasants, fishermen, housewives – whose families have always

been there.

Star Stuff itself works like an observatory. The film follows the days and nights

both of the astronomers and of the common people. They seem so different but

they are also so similar. They are men and women under the same sky, asking

themselves the same questions about life and their place in the universe. Some

do through the refined evolutions of scientifical thought, the others with simple

words who are not less wise and deep.

The film is also a stunning visual experience, mixing time-lapse photography of

the sky (all done on location) and down-to-earth documentary filmmaking,

always very intimate. In the end, Star Stuff asks the question mankind has been

wondering about forever: what is our place in the universe, phisically and not

only? Maybe the answer is impossibile, but the quest for it is full of hope and

emotion.