Emer Reynold’s brilliant Irish documentary The Farthest, the story of NASA’s Voyager spacecrafts, opens in the US tomorrow and is set to open in the UK from September 1st via Wildcard Distribution.
Ahead of its UK release the film will preview at the Queens Film Theatre in Belfast and Picture House Central in London on August 26th and August 31st respectively, with both screening including a post screening Q&A with the director. Tickets can be purchased now on the Queens Film Theatre and the Picture House Central websites.
It’s one of humankind’s greatest achievements. More than 12 billion miles away a tiny spaceship is leaving our Solar System and entering the void of deep space – the first human-made object ever to do so. Launched in August 1977, Voyager has defied all the odds, survived countless near misses and almost 40 years later continues to beam revolutionary information across unimaginable distances with less computing power than a modern hearing aid. It’s estimated that Voyager’s nuclear generator will last another decade before the lights finally go out. But this little craft will travel on for millions of years, carrying a Golden Record bearing recordings and images of life on Earth. It could very well outlive humanity and our creations and be the only evidence that we ever existed.
The Rings of Saturn, just one of the planets visited by the Voyager space probes.An entirely Irish production, The Farthest includes interviews with 30 of the original scientists and engineers who built and flew the ground breaking mission, never-seen-before archive footage from inside NASA along with spectacular CGI, designed and created by Irish talent. The film not only celebrates these magnificent machines, the people who built them and the vision that propelled them farther than anyone could have ever hoped but it also explores what it is to be human and the mysteries that define our existence.
The film has been capturing the imaginations of audiences across the globe since its world premiere at the Audi Dublin International Film Festival earlier this year where it picked up three awards for Best Irish Documentary, the AUDI-ence Award and the George Byrne Maverick Award (Emer Reynolds). It has gone on to screen at some of the world’s most renowned film festivals including Tribeca, Sydney and Edinburgh.
The Farthest was produced by John Murray and Clare Stronge for Crossing the Line Films in association with Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board, HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, RTÉ, BBC, ZDF, Arte, PBS. Developed with the support of the Creative Europe Programme – MEDIA of the European Union and produced with the support of Section 481.
The film, which has become the biggest grossing documentary at the Irish Box Office so far this year, is still playing at the Irish Film Institute, Light House Cinema, IMC Dun Laoghaire, and The Gate Cork. It will add three more Irish cities to its roster, opening in the Odeon Waterford on August 16th, the Triskel in Cork on August 27th and the Belltable in Limerick on August 28th.
Keep up to date with the film on Facebook and Twitter. #Farthest