HUMAN NATURE


“Human Nature tells the story of CRISPR genome engineering with a gripping mix of science and heart. It gives audiences a front row seat to a technological revolution that could reshape our planet and humanity itself. As we embark on a global conversation about our future, this film is essential viewing.” – Jennifer Doudna
“Thorough, lucid, and engaging” – The Boston Globe
SYNOPSIS
From executive producer Dan Rather and director Adam Bolt, the co-writer and editor of the Oscar-winning film Inside Job, comes the story of the biggest tech revolution of the 21st Century. And it isn’t digital, it’s biological.
A breakthrough called CRISPR has given us unprecedented control over the basic building blocks of life. It opens the door to curing diseases, reshaping the biosphere, and designing our own children. Human Nature is a provocative exploration of CRISPR’s far-reaching implications, through the eyes of the scientists who discovered it, the families it’s affecting, and the bioengineers who are testing its limits. How will this new power change our relationship with nature? What will it mean for human evolution? To begin to answer these questions we must look back billions of years and peer into an uncertain future.
PAST SCREENINGS
Date(s) | Festival/Theater | Location |
---|---|---|
3/10/19, 3/12/19, 3/14/19 | SXSW | Austin, TX |
3/25/19, 3/27/19, 3/29/19 | CPH:DOX | Copenhagen, Denmark |
4/5/19 | Full Frame | Durham, NC |
4/26/19, 4/28/19 | AFO | Olomouc, Czech Republic |
4/27/19, 4/28/19, 4/30/19 | Hot Docs | Toronto, Canada |
5/2/19 | Newport Beach FF | Newport Beach, CA |
5/17/19, 5/25/19, 5/27/19 | Seattle International FF | Seattle, WA |
6/22/19 | AFI Docs | Washington, D.C. |
6/23/19 | Silbersalz Science & Media Festival | Halle, Germany |
7/31/19 | Woods Hole FF | Woods Hole, MA |
8/17/19 | Savonlinna International Nature FF | Savonlinna, Finland |
9/12/19 | Visioni dal Mondo | Milan, Italy |
9/14/19,9/15/19,9/16/19,9/18/19 | Homer Documentary Film Festival | Homer, AK |
9/23/19 | Jackson Wild Summit | Jackson, WY |
9/28/19 | Sausalito Film Festival | Sausalito, CA |
9/26/19, 10/1/19, 10/2/19 | Bergen International Film Festival | Bergen, Norway |
10/3/19 | Globe Docs | Boston, MA |
9/27/19,9/28/19,10/10/19 | Vancouver International Film Festival | Vancouver, Canada |
10/4/19 – 10/10/19 | Hot Docs Cinema | Toronto, Canada |
10/13/19 | Orcas Island Film Festival | Eastsound, WA |
10/5/19, 10/14/19 | Doctober | Bellingham, WA |
10/21/19 | Hot Springs Documentary FF | Hot Springs, AR |
10/18/19-10/24/19 | Bytowne Cinema | Ottawa, Canada |
10/25/19 | FilmColumbia | Chatham, NY |
10/26/19 | Pariscience Film Festival | Paris, France |
10/28/19 | Bay Area Science Festival, Roxie Theater | San Francisco, CA |
10/31/19 | 41 North Film Festival | Houghton, MI |
11/2/19 | Windsor Film Festival | Windsor, ON |
11/3/19 | Doctober | Bellingham, WA |
11/1/19 – 11/7/19 | Hyland Cinema | London, ON |
11/5/19 | Scottsdale International Film Festival | Scottsdale, AZ |
11/6/19 | Cinemateket | Oslo, Norway |
11/7/19 | Life Sciences Film Festival | Prague, Czech Republic |
11/9/19 | DOC NYC | New York, NY |
11/11/19 | Goucher College | Towson, MD |
11/12/19 – 11/26/19 | Broadcast/Streaming on DBS – YesDocu! | Israel |
11/15/19, 11/19/19, 11/20/19, 11/28/19 | Black Nights Film Festival | Tallinn, Estonia |
11/17/19 | Yukon Arts Centre | Whitehorse, YT |
11/21/19 | Vega Scene | Oslo, Norway |
11/29/19 | Science Museum | London, UK |
12/2/19 | Midlands Arts Centre | Birmingham, UK |
12/6/19 | Bertha DocHouse | London, UK |
12/7/19 | Global Health Film Festival | London, UK |
11/7/19-12/26/19 | Screenings in various German cities | Germany |
12/3/19 | Broadcast/Streaming on NRK | Norway |
12/18/19 | Regent Street Cinema | London, UK |
1/8/20 | Broadcast/Streaming on VPRO | Netherlands |
1/15/20 | Soho House | Oxfordshire, UK |
1/23/20 – 1/26/20 | Reframe Film Festival | Peterborough, Canada |
1/22/20, 1/27/20 | Tournai Ramdam Festival | Tournai, Belgium |
1/29/20 | Shuswap Film Society | Salmon Arm, BC, Canada |
2/6/20 | Paramount Theatre – Kamloops Film Society | Kamloops, BC, Canada |
2/7/20 | Everyman Cinema | Liverpool, UK |
2/12/20 | MAC | Birmingham, UK |
2/15/20 | Woods Hole Film Festival’s Film Falmouth series | Falmouth, MA |
2/19/20 | The Ultimate Picture Palace | Oxford, UK |
2/22/20 | KDocsFF | Surrey, Canada |
2/24/20, 2/28/20 | Sedona International Film Festival | Sedona, AZ |
2/28/20 | Salt Spring Film Festival | Salt Spring, BC, Canada |
3/7/20 | Belleville Downtown DocFest | Belleville, ON, Canada |
3/13/20 – 3/20/20 | The Village East Cinema | NYC, NY |
3/13/20 – 3/20/20 | Landmark’s Shattuck Cinemas | Berkeley, CA |
IMAGES
FILM MAKERS
ADAM BOLT
Director
Adam Bolt edited and co-wrote the Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job, for which he received the Writer’s Guild Award for Best Documentary Screenplay and was nominated for an American Cinema Editors award for Best Edited Documentary in 2011. He won an Emmy in 2014 for his work on the Showtime documentary series Years of Living Dangerously, where he served as senior producer, writer, and editor. His other credits include director Alex Gibney’s Park Avenue: Money, Power & The American Dream, which premiered on PBS’s Independent Lens and went on to win a Peabody Award in 2013; Page One: Inside the New York Times, which was nominated for two Emmys (including Best Editing) in 2012; and the HBO documentary The Recruiter, which won a Columbia duPont award for excellence in broadcast journalism in 2010.
ELLIOT KIRSCHNER
Executive Producer
Elliot Kirschner is the Executive Producer of the Wonder Collaborative, a New York Times best-selling author, and Emmy-award winning news and documentary producer. He got his start at CBS News, producing for such programs as 60 Minutes, Sunday Morning and the Evening News. In 2007, Kirschner joined legendary news icon Dan Rather to help manage a cable news and documentary program where he commissioned and oversaw numerous science reports. He joined iBiology in 2015 and is currently leading the group’s efforts to create content for the general public. His 2017 book What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism, written with Dan Rather, was a bestseller.
REGINA SOBEL
Editor/Co-Writer
Regina Sobel is a Brooklyn-based film editor and producer. She was the editor and co-writer of Fail State (Starz), a feature documentary about inequality in higher education which premiered at DOC NYC in 2017. She also served as editor and producer on Old Dog, a verite documentary about sheep dog training in New Zealand, and associate editor on Alex Ross Perry’s Queen of Earth (IFC Films), starring Elisabeth Moss. Previously, she produced and directed graphics for film and TV, including PBS’s Park Avenue: Money, Power & the American Dream, Showtime’s “Years of Living Dangerously,” and HBO’s “Game of Thrones.”
MEREDITH DESALAZAR
Producer
Meredith DeSalazar is an award-winning news producer with over 13 years experience. She started at ABC News covering the presidential election, then researching and producing for World News Tonight. She joined news legend Dan Rather 10 years ago producing investigative stories, often with a science focus such as: the environmental impact of stormwater runoff, the dark underworld of shark finning and the invasion of lionfish into foreign waters. She was the first television reporter to raise red flags about the danger of concussions and the NFL’s efforts to sweep the issue under the rug.
SARAH GOODWIN
Producer
Sarah Goodwin is the leading science advisor on the film. She is the Executive Director of the Wonder Collaborative and iBiology, a non-profit that produces videos by the world’s leading biologists. Before joining iBiology, she got her Ph.D. in Cell Biology from the University of California, San Francisco. Under her leadership, iBiology has grown in staff and scope, and has produced hundreds of videos with millions of yearly views. Sarah has worked with a wide variety of scientists on communicating their research and stories, and has ensured the science content in this film is accurate in depicting the state of knowledge and the spirit of discovery.
DEREK REICH
Cinematographer
Derek Reich is an Emmy Award winning cinematographer who has traveled to datelines around the globe to capture the images needed for visual storytelling. After getting his start covering the American West for CBS News, Derek expanded into documentary filmmaking with an emphasis on cinematically arresting narratives. He will regale you with stories of bears and dogs.
STEVE TYLER
Editor
Steve Tyler is an Emmy Award winning documentary film editor and long-time collaborator with Human Nature executive producers Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner. Before taking up editing, Steve could be found on Broadway or in theaters around the country as an accomplished music director for shows like The Producers, Jane Eyre and The Sound of Music.
GREG BOUSTEAD
Executive Producer
Greg Boustead is the Program Director at Science Sandbox, an initiative of the Simons Foundation that he helped launch in 2015 to inspire a deeper interest in science, especially among those who don’t think of themselves as science fans. With a background in neuroscience, film, and journalism, Greg has dedicated his career to bringing sophisticated science content to general audiences, across many platforms. Other credits include executive producer of the feature-length documentary The Most Unknown, co-produced with VICE Media/Motherboard and released by Netflix in 2018.
DAN RATHER
Executive Producer
Dan Rather is one of the world’s best-known journalists for much of the last half century. He has interviewed every president since Eisenhower and personally covered almost every important dateline of the last 60 years. Rather joined CBS News in 1962 and in 1981 assumed the position of anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News—a post he held for 24 years. His reporting across the network helped to turn 60 Minutes into an institution, launched 48 Hours as an innovative news magazine program, and shaped countless specials and documentaries. Upon leaving CBS, Rather returned to the in-depth reporting he always loved, creating the Emmy Award winning, Dan Rather Reports on HDNet. Now, he is president and CEO of News and Guts, an independent production company he founded that specializes in high-quality non- fiction content. He has a special interest in telling the stories of science.
FEATURED VOICES
DAVID BALTIMORE
California Institute of Technology
JILL BANFIELD
UC Berkeley
RODOLPHE BARRANGOU
NC State University
ALTA CHARO
U of Wisconsin – Madison
EMMANUELLE CHARPENTIER
Max Planck Institute
GEORGE CHURCH
Harvard University
GEORGE DALEY
Harvard Medical School
JENNIFER DOUDNA
UC Berkeley
HANK GREELY
Stanford University
IAN HODDER
Stanford University
STEPHEN HSU
Genomic Prediction
KELSEY MCCLELLAND
DNA Dialogue
FRANCISCO MOJICA
University of Alicante
RYAN PHELAN
Revive and Restore
MATT PORTEUS
Stanford University
ANTONIO REGALADO
MIT Technology Review
DAVID SANCHEZ
Sickle cell patient
SYNTHEGO
RNA synthesis company
FYODOR URNOV
Altius and IGI
ETHAN WEISS
Ruthie’s father
PALMER WEISS
Ruthie’s mother
RUTHIE WEISS
5th grader
LUHAN YANG
e-Genesis
FENG ZHANG
Broad Institute
PRESS
‘Human Nature’ Review: We Can Now Alter Our DNA. But Should We? -The New York Times (Critic’s Pick)
Review: The biotech doc ‘Human Nature’ offers both hope — and caution -Los Angeles Times
The Gene Revolution Is Already Here – National Review
Crispr’s Origin Story Comes to Life in a New Documentary – Wired
Movie Review: ‘Human Nature’- Red Carpet Crash
Review: ‘Human Nature’ explores the dilemmas of genetic engineering – San Francisco Chronicle
‘Human Nature’ A stunning work of science journalism -Glide Magazine
Human Nature review – quiet revolution that began in a yoghurt pot – The Guardian
CRISPR doc ‘Human Nature’ embraces the hope and peril of gene editing -Engadget
New documentary has a good time asking how gene editing might change the world -Ars Technica
Reviews: Human Nature -Film Threat
DOCNYC review: ‘Human Nature’ – When You’re Not Working
Film Review: Human Nature – the Biologist
Real reels: 8 SXSW documentaries to watch for -Austin 360
Annette gets nerdy with Director Adam Bolt and his DNA splicing doc CRISPR! -Aint it Cool
SXSW 2019 Review: Human Nature -A Reel of One’s Own
Dan Rather: ‘Human Nature’ doc is part of global conversation about life -Austin 360
“Chromosome broken,
-Jim Haber Haiku about homology-directed repair
awaits sounds of strands pairing,
preserving the life’s thread.”