Empire of our Senses: The Body and Mind in Science — World Science Festival Brisbane Film Program

Overview

Many topics are up for discussion at this year's World Science Festival Brisbane, but only one is getting a five-day mini film fest at the Gallery of Modern Art to go with it. That'd be the ways that science and technology can help us re-evaluate our minds and bodies in a number of different ways, complete with true tales, rousing documentaries and ethical explorations from March 21 to 25.

Highlights include Experimenter: The Stanley Milgram Story, about the researcher behind a series of groundbreaking '60s experiments; The Farthest, chronicling the 1977 voyager mission into space; climate change doco Before the Flood, which is hosted by Leonardo DiCaprio (on-screen, not at GOMA, sadly); and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, starring none other than Oprah as the daughter of the real-life African-American woman whose cells were used to create the first immortal human cell line in the early '50s. Still on exceptional women, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story delves into the true tale of the Hollywood starlet who also invented a radio system that was a precursor to wifi and bluetooth.

A dinner-and-film session of The Empire of the Scents will serve attendees a meal specially inspired by scent, fittingly enough, though tickets for it have understandably sold out. Expect a crowd at the free session of The Theory of Everything, too, with the free session also marking a tribute to the late Stephen Hawking.