Canary (2023)
Director: Alex Rivest, Danny O’Malley Run Time: 104 min. Rating: NR
Starring: Lonnie Thompson
Country: United States
Language: English
Welcome professors and research scientists Lonnie Thompson and Ellen Mosley-Thompson for an introduction and post screening Q&A at the 1:30pm screening on Friday, September 15, and the 7:00 pm on Sunday, September 17.
Join us for additional screenings of the documentary all week long.
About the film:
Witness the extraordinary life of The Ohio State University’s Lonnie Thompson, an explorer who went where no scientist had gone before and transformed our idea of what is possible.
Daring to seek Earth’s history contained in glaciers atop the tallest mountains in the world, Lonnie found himself on the frontlines of climate change—his life’s work evolving into a salvage mission to recover these priceless historical records before they disappear forever.
“The tenacity of a lone scientist can alter the course of thinking.”
—Nature Magazine
From director and Grammy nominee Danny O’Malley (Chef’s Table) and Alex Rivest (PhD scientist trained at MIT), the film captures the thrills and challenges of scientific discovery and exploration.
About the panelists:
Lonnie Thompson, PhD (The Ohio State University)
A Distinguished University Professor in the School of Earth Sciences and a Research Scientist in the Byrd Polar Research Center at OSU. His research has propelled the field of ice core paleoclimatology out of the Polar Regions to the highest tropical and subtropical ice fields. He and the OSU team have developed new technologies and greatly advanced our understanding of the Earth’s climate system. He has published 245 peer-reviewed publications including several in the journal Science, led 63 field programs, and secured 76 research grants. He has been recognized with many honors and awards, including the National Medal of Science, the Tyler Prize (the World Prize for Environmental Achievement), and the Dan David Prize. In addition, he is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and an elected member of the American Philosophical Society and the National Academy of Sciences.
Ellen Mosley-Thompson (The Ohio State University)
A Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Geography (Atmospheric Science Program) and a Senior Research Scientist in the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center at OSU. She uses the chemical and physical properties preserved in cores collected from both polar ice sheets and high mountain glaciers to reconstruct Earth’s complex climate history. She has led numerous expeditions, including the field team for the 2010 ice core drilling project on Bruce Plateau (Antarctic Peninsula), a U.S. contribution to the International Polar Year. She has published 137 peer-reviewed papers and is the recipient of 53 research grants. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society and is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
About the filmmakers:
Directing partners Danny O’Malley and Alex Rivest won the Alfred P Sloan development grant in 2017, which led to the creation of their first feature Canary (2023).
Danny O’Malley is a Grammy-nominated and James Beard-nominated film director best known for his work on Netflix’s Chef’s Table, where he serves as co-executive producer and a director. He has worked filming with bands across the United States, including Tegan and Sara, The Rentals, The Decemberists, Kraftwerk, and more. His documentary, States, from Tegan and Sara’s release Get Along (2011), was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Long Form Music Video. He made his mark in documentary television working as a story producer where his work has aired on Netflix, Fox Sports One, and NBC. On Chef’s Table, he is a key force behind the character-driven storytelling that is the show‘s signature.
Alex Rivest is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained PhD Neuroscientist. Having worked alongside Nobel Prize winner Dr. Susumu Tonegawa, his research has been published in two of the most highly renowned scientific journals, Science and Nature Neuroscience. Alex grew up in an environment where curiosity and question-asking were highly valued, and he has dedicated his life to helping teach others about the wonders of the world. As an educator, he received the Angus MacDonald Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at MIT, and founded the non-profit Blue Kitabu, which built a sustainable primary school in central Ghana. As a science filmmaker, Alex’s videos have accumulated more than 70 million views online, and have been featured everywhere, from billboards in Times Square to installations in science museums and even in an opera production of Das Rheingold.
See our upcoming films