While our 2026 program is under development, some of the films entered this year are already publicly available on YouTube, and we share them with you below.
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Finding the Formula (UK, 79 mins)
Finding the Formula (watch on YouTube) is in English language language.
This documentary takes you inside the University of Exeter's Formula Student team, Xracing, where students build a racecar bound for Silverstone... if they can rise to the challenge. Unprecedented access like you've never seen before, showcasing all that Formula Student has to offer, where students take their first step towards F1 and the professional world. Filmmaker TJ McErlean started his filmmaking journey shooting car reviews for YouTube and says this was his largest film project to date. Visit the film’s IMDB listing.
Director: TJ McEarlean
Finding the Formula was entered in our ‘Best Student Film’ category -
Resonances (France, 25 mins)
Resonances (watch on YouTube) is in French language with English subtitles. The viewer plunges into a poetic exploration of the human body, witnessing the birth of a microscopic orchestra where heart cells synchronise to beat in unison. This journey takes the viewer to the frontiers of scientific research: the dialogue between the gut and the nervous system, the fight against ageing, and the creation of organoids, one of whose promises is to regenerate living tissue. From next-generation prosthetics to DNA architectures, we discover that every biological signal is a note that resonates.
Director: Renaud Pourpre
Resonances was entered in our ‘Best Experimental Film’ category -
The Drain of Routine (Brazil, 17 mins)
The Drain of Routine (watch on YouTube) is in Portuguese language with English subtitles and on-screen International Sign Language interpretation.
Over the course of a single day, a woman spends hours washing a pile of dishes. As phone calls and conversations are repeatedly interrupted by the task, relationships shaped by her absence slowly come into focus, worn down by an exhausting daily routine. Director Yumi holds a degree in Film and Audiovisual Studies from Brazil’s CEUNSP and works as a screenwriter and director, focussing on female protagonists and their inner conflicts. Director: Yumi
Routine was entered in our ‘Best Student Film’ category -
Genomic Mechanics (Portugal, 3 mins)
Genomic Mechanics (watch on YouTube) is in Portuguese language with English subtitles. This film discusses the human body the same way we talk abut a cars - a customer has come to a mechanic repair shop, but the mechanic is really talking about genetic repair. The filmmaker reflects on some of the mechanisms associated with genomic medicine, the way which it is communicated to patients and society in genera, and the impact that genomic medicine may have on people’s lives and addresses the figure of the genetic counsellor, mandatory by law in Portugal for patients exploring Medical Genetics.
Director: Tiago Cerviera
Mechanics was entered in our ‘Best Experimental Film’ category -
Journey to Knowledge (Turkey, 20 mins)
Journey to Knowledge: Andalusia (watch on YouTube) is in Turkish language with English subtitles. Explores the fascinating route of science and technology as part of the great ‘transfer of science and knowledge’ extending from the Eastern Islamic world to Andalusia. The story proves that Islamic civilization was not merely a stopover, but a vast "filter and laboratory" of the ancient world's legacy for the modern age. We look at how science was processed and transformed in ancient centers such as Harran, Baghdad, Alexandria, and Antioch, finding its way to Europe via caravan routes.
Director: Sendat Benek
Journey was entered in our ‘Best Experimental Film’ category -
R.E.M. (USA, 27 mins)
R.E.M. (watch on YouTube) is in English language language. In a near future where a device can record and replay dreams, Emma becomes obsessed with revisiting the past. Once a promising writer, she now spends her nights immersed in archived dreams of the ex-fiance she cannot let go of, Andy. This technology allows her to relive all that was good about life, trapping her in a cycle of toxic nostalgia that keeps her stuck, creatively and emotionally. But her dreams begin to shift, a new man appears. He’s unfamiliar, but safe; quietly guiding her out of these fragmented dreamscapes.
Director: Maddi Trammell
R.E.M. was entered in our ‘Best Short Film’ category -
Bite the Pain (Portugal, 2 mins)
Bite the Pain (watch on YouTube) is in Portuguese language and International Sign Language with English subtitles.
‘Bite the Pain’ explores the personal impact of an autoimmune disease. Based on the poem ‘Bite the Bullet’ by Marion Line, also featured in the aforementioned show, this digital artistic object focuses on the concept of translating something as personal and non-transferable as one’s pain. Written by Marin Line, it features performance from Joana Sousa and Ines Dias, and a soundtrack by Marcelo dos Reis.
Director: Marionet Associação Cultural
Bite the Bullet was entered in our ‘Best Experimental Film’ category -
Through Abe's Eyes (Mexico, 18 mins)
Through Abe’s Eyes (watch on YouTube) is in Spanish language with English subtitles. Abe, a quirky and colourful physics student, is rebuked by her professor for presenting her homework with a creative flair; pushing her to change her eyes and experience the world like an "ordinary" person. Mexican filmmaker Melissa Yaeth is a science communicator and physicist with specialisation in cinematographic studies. Yaeth plays with the Mexican literary tradition of magic realism in her short film that quite literally asks a student to see through the eyes of another person.
Director: Melissa Yaeth
Journey was entered in our ‘Best Student Film’ category -
The Circlepit Anomaly (German, 20 mins)
Finding the Formula (watch on YouTube) is in English language language.
This documentary takes you inside the University of Exeter's Formula Student team, Xracing, where students build a racecar bound for Silverstone... if they can rise to the challenge. Unprecedented access like you've never seen before, showcasing all that Formula Student has to offer, where students take their first step towards F1 and the professional world. Filmmaker TJ McErlean started his filmmaking journey shooting car reviews for YouTube and says this was his largest film project to date. Visit the film’s IMDB listing.
Director: TJ McEarlean
Finding the Formula was entered in our ‘Best Student Film’ category -
Can Microalgae Solve Our Food Crisis (UK, 4 mins)
Finding the Formula (watch on YouTube) is in English language language.
This documentary takes you inside the University of Exeter's Formula Student team, Xracing, where students build a racecar bound for Silverstone... if they can rise to the challenge. Unprecedented access like you've never seen before, showcasing all that Formula Student has to offer, where students take their first step towards F1 and the professional world. Filmmaker TJ McErlean started his filmmaking journey shooting car reviews for YouTube and says this was his largest film project to date. Visit the film’s IMDB listing.
Director: TJ McEarlean
Finding the Formula was entered in our ‘Best Student Film’ category -
Can We Talk To Plants (UK, 4 mins)
Finding the Formula (watch on YouTube) is in English language language.
This documentary takes you inside the University of Exeter's Formula Student team, Xracing, where students build a racecar bound for Silverstone... if they can rise to the challenge. Unprecedented access like you've never seen before, showcasing all that Formula Student has to offer, where students take their first step towards F1 and the professional world. Filmmaker TJ McErlean started his filmmaking journey shooting car reviews for YouTube and says this was his largest film project to date. Visit the film’s IMDB listing.
Director: TJ McEarlean
Finding the Formula was entered in our ‘Best Student Film’ category -
Buddha's Lotus (Japan, 20 mins)
Finding the Formula (watch on YouTube) is in English language language.
This documentary takes you inside the University of Exeter's Formula Student team, Xracing, where students build a racecar bound for Silverstone... if they can rise to the challenge. Unprecedented access like you've never seen before, showcasing all that Formula Student has to offer, where students take their first step towards F1 and the professional world. Filmmaker TJ McErlean started his filmmaking journey shooting car reviews for YouTube and says this was his largest film project to date. Visit the film’s IMDB listing.
Director: TJ McEarlean
Finding the Formula was entered in our ‘Best Student Film’ category -
The Chiton (Japan, 25 mins)
The Chiton (watch on YouTube) is in Japanese Language with English subtitles.
From the Japanese science television series ‘GalileoX’, this episode is called The Chiton: A Mollusc With The World’s Strongest Teeth, and it’s all there in the title. The Chiton (Polyplacophora) is an ancient mollusc found everywhere yet often overlooked, but in fact it possesses the strongest teeth on Earth. This film explores its biology in greater detail than any other visual content in the world. Satoshi Moriguchi
Director: Satoshi Moriguchi
Finding the Formula was entered in our ‘Best Short Film’ category -
Right Here Right Now (France, 10 mins)
Finding the Formula (watch on YouTube) is in English language language.
This documentary takes you inside the University of Exeter's Formula Student team, Xracing, where students build a racecar bound for Silverstone... if they can rise to the challenge. Unprecedented access like you've never seen before, showcasing all that Formula Student has to offer, where students take their first step towards F1 and the professional world. Filmmaker TJ McErlean started his filmmaking journey shooting car reviews for YouTube and says this was his largest film project to date. Visit the film’s IMDB listing.
Director: TJ McEarlean
Finding the Formula was entered in our ‘Best Student Film’ category
FAQs
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You are the venue in our film festival model. We will give you a password protected URL that will give you all of the themed programs below. You’ll obviously need a laptop or interactive whiteboard or screen or, if you’re lucky, your venue has a theatre. The programs go live on the morning of Friday 8 August, and will stay live to end of day Friday 29 August. You can play the films one at a time, in their themed programs, however you want. Our themed programs are just ‘suggestions,’ but particularly for teachers we have curated the student-friendly programming together. You need to find your own audience, do your own publicity.
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Apologies, our film permissions loaned to us by the filmmakers who enter only cover Australia.
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Go to National Science Week website to register as a venue, to receive your program information.